EFAs save millions? No, not really
Janelle Hieronymus’ letter ‘EFAs save taxpayers millions’ has some seriously delusional reasoning behind her claims that EFAs save money for Neew Hampshire. Her claim that the $51 million that is to be spent this year would save $200 million ignores the fact that the districts still have to keep the doors open. It also ignores the fact that most EFA recipients were already going to private schools or homeschooling.
Unless a school can reduce the number of classes, or close entirely, their fixed costs for staffing and the buildings stays largely the same and is picked up at greater expense by the district as they lose state funding. Her claims about transparency from the administrator, The Children’s Scholarship Fund are suspect. The CHSF failed to properly document eligibility for 12 of 50 sampled applications in a 2023 review of the prior two years. Yes, they improved on the last audit, but it took required corrective action and a fine to do it.
Hieronymus’s letter extols the fact that they only charge 7.83% for their services. Out of $51 million, that is approximately $4 million. That’s FOUR MILLION DOLLARS to rubber stamp every request that comes in, whether it be for tuition, or horseback lessons or lift tickets. Her final statement, that “New Hampshire’s EFA program is operating exactly as designed” is the most accurate thing she wrote. It was designed to siphon off funds from an underfunded public education system, at that, it is succeeding.