Tuition credit bill stalls, leaving school choice debate on ice

A bill to provide state-funded private school grants appears dead for the 2023 session.

The abrupt move could also bring the Legislature’s protracted debate over school choice to a grinding halt.

Senate Bill 1161 — a proposal creating the five-year grant pilot — had been scheduled for a Wednesday hearing. But on Tuesday evening, sponsors asked House Education Committee Chairwoman Julie Yamamoto to pull the bill from the agenda.

“We have been visiting with individual committee members the past few days, searching for a way to advance the bill,” one of the sponsors, Rep. Wendy Horman, R-Idaho Falls, said Wednesday morning. “We heard back from the final committee members around 5 p.m. yesterday that was not a path they could support, so we requested the bill be pulled from the agenda.

“(Yamamoto) thanked us for the decision, calling it an act of mercy.”

On Wednesday, Yamamoto stopped short of saying SB 1161 didn’t have the support to get out of committee.

“I have not asked anyone to vote a certain way, or asked them what they were going to do,” said Yamamoto, R-Caldwell, who said she personally had “grave concerns” about the proposal.

SB 1161 would have piggybacked onto the Empowering Parents education microgrant program, adding a $12 million-a-year tuition grant pilot.

The program would have provided 2,000 families with grants of $6,000 apiece. SB 1161 had a five-year sunset; in 2029, legislators would have been required to decide on the program’s long-term future.

SB 1161 narrowly passed the Senate Thursday — but House Education had always loomed as a high hurdle. The committee has voted down other school choice proposals, as recently as last week.

With SB 1161 off the table, it appears unlikely that any school choice legislation will pass in the waning days of the 2023 session. Legislative leaders have said they hope to adjourn for the year Friday — although the session could stretch into at least next week.

Only one proposal remains in play: a $30 million private school and homeschool tax credit bill. But this bill could run into an end-of-session logjam. The House Revenue and Taxation Committee only introduced the proposal Tuesday morning, and it would have to pass both houses in the waning days of the session. First, this bill would need to get a hearing in Revenue and Taxation, and those prospects are uncertain.

“(I have) no plans at this time,” committee Chairman Jason Monks, R-Meridian, said Wednesday morning.

While the school choice debate is apparently finished for 2023, Yamamoto said the process worked as it should. The legislative process is designed to be “slow and cumbersome and messy,” she said, especially when lawmakers are weighing a pivotal decision about whether to put public money into private education.

“Maybe we can get a state dinosaur in one session,” Yamamoto said. “(This) rises to a different level.”

This story was originally published as part of the March 22, 2023 Statehouse Roundup by Idaho Education News. Read more of the roundup on IDEdNews.org.