Comptroller promises a public dashboard on school voucher accounts and an outside audit of the program

Texans will soon be able to look up how the state's new school voucher program is being used, Comptroller Don Huffines said Monday, and he plans to bring in an independent firm to audit it.

The Comptroller's office runs Texas Education Freedom Accounts, which give families state money to spend on private school tuition and other approved education costs. In a news release, Huffines said more than 100,000 students are enrolled in the program and a similar number are on its waiting list.

What the new page will show

The agency said it will post a webpage this week with an initial set of data, then build it out over the coming weeks into a searchable dashboard with charts. According to the release, the data points will include, among others:

• the number of funded accounts
• students on the first-year waiting list
• participation by priority tier
• a breakdown of students with disabilities
• the program's impact on public school enrollment

The release says the page will protect the personal information of students and families. It will also link to the office's law enforcement whistleblower portal, where people can report suspected fraud, anonymously if they choose.

"Texans deserve transparency to know how their tax dollars are being spent," Huffines said in the release. He called the page the first of several online dashboards the agency intends to build on different topics.

Three layers of review

Huffines said work toward an audit of the voucher program by an outside, independent firm began when he took office this summer, and that the agency is still working to hire an auditor. The release does not name a firm, give a cost or set a date for results.

That audit would come on top of the routine audit the State Auditor's Office is already conducting and the Comptroller's internal oversight, which the release describes as three separate levels of review.

The announcement is part of what Huffines calls the Taxpayer First Project. The release lists earlier steps under that banner, including reviews of how four school districts operate, with the findings due out before the year is over.

The release did not include any figures on how voucher money has been spent so far.

Sources

State of Texas