Legislators scale back governor's plan to expand school voucher program

That and several other changes were made in the budget-writing House Ways and Means Committee, which then voted 14-7 along party lines to move House Bill 1003 on to the full chamber. The governor’s office said it approved of the overhaul.

“We are supportive of the changes and look forward to continue to expand options for Hoosier families,” Pence spokeswoman Kara Brooks said.

The voucher law currently requires Hoosier parents earning up to 150 percent of the amount necessary to qualify for the free-and-reduced-price lunch program — or around $65,000 for a family of four — to send their children to a public school for at least one year before they can qualify for a private-school voucher.

The bill, by House Education Chairman Bob Behning, R-Indianapolis, would have dropped that one-year requirement.

But Ways and Means Chairman Tim Brown, R-Crawfordsville, said that change, proposed by Behning and endorsed — like the rest of the bill — by Pence, could have cost the state as much as $40 million per year.

“That was a big fiscal impact,” Brown said.

He offered an amendment to keep the required one year in public school in place for students already in the education system — but ditch it for those just entering kindergarten.

It was one of several changes that limited the scope of the expansion Pence and Behning are pursuing.

Brown’s amendment also scotched a portion of the bill that would have raised from $1,000 to $3,000 the amount of education expenses that parents of private- and home-schooled students can deduct from their taxes.

Vouchers for children in first through eighth grades are currently worth $4,500. The bill would have bumped that up to $6,500 — but Brown’s amendment lessened the increase to $5,500, phased in over two years.

The bill originally did away with the income guidelines for parents who already have one child signed up for the voucher program, who are military veterans, who have foster children or who have special needs children.

Brown’s amendment limited access for those parents to those who earn about 200 percent of the amount to become eligible for free or reduced lunch — or about $85,000 per year for a family of four.

The changes satisfied budget hawks and groups that have opposed the voucher program from the outset.

“The level of resources available to our traditional, community-based public schools is being squeezed,” said Gail Zeheralis, the Indiana State Teachers Association’s director of state government relations.

Behning, though, said he was on board with all of the changes — and that more could be made on the House floor.

The voucher program, approved by the Republican-dominated General Assembly in 2011, is being used to pay parts of the tuition bills for 9,135 Indiana students this year.

Senate Education and Career Development Committee Chairman Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn, said this month that he is not eager to expand the program just yet — but that he will give Pence’s proposal a hearing and a vote.

The bill — which contains a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for Hoosiers who donate to organizations that grant prekindergarten scholarships — advanced on the same day that the full House approved another bill to launch a two-year, state-funded, pilot prekindergarten program.

“Investing in high quality early learning makes great business sense for Indiana,” said Rep. Suzanne Crouch, R-Evansville.

“Longer term, workforces will be staffed by employees who have the necessary education for tomorrow’s tasks. Special education costs can be greatly reduced, and higher graduation rates reduce the likelihood of increased societal costs for incarceration, welfare, or unemployment.”