On March 21, the Monitor published an article about the difficulty the Office of the Legislative Budget Assistant is having in performing its legally mandated audit of the Education Freedom Account (school vouchers) program. The Department of Education states that since the information needed for the audit is held by a private scholarship organization, the DOE cannot release the information. The private organization, The Children’s Scholarship Fund, stated it could hand over the data with the permission of the DOE. But then they backtracked and stated they could not hand over the data.

Why the change? Why does the DOE not want the information released? It is taxpayer money funding the EFA’s and the audit was legally mandated in 2022 when Governor Sununu signed HB 1135. Commissioner Edelblut called the audit a “fishing expedition.” Does he feel the DOE is exempt from scrutiny of how it and its contractors spend money? If the reluctance comes from the contractor, perhaps the DOE should be administering this program itself. The EFA program has spent $45 million over the few years since its inception, yet the taxpayers still have no real information about how the money is spent and the student outcomes for those in the program. The DOE, the commissioner and the scholarship organization should all cooperate with the audit.

Linda Mattlage

Concord