Gardiner Parents Frustrated, Demanding Oversight

When a politically connected non-profit manages a $1 billion public program with little to no oversight, what could go wrong?

Last session, when Gardiner families travelled to Tallahassee to testify against HB7045, which massively expanded and reorganized Florida’s existing voucher programs, formally eliminating the Gardiner program for students with disabilities and combining it with the needs based Family Empowerment Scholarship (FES), their concerns were dismissed as being uninformed. Rep. Chris Latvala (R-67) believed the speakers had not been “told the whole truth about this bill.” He said “There are 2 truths to this bill. The first truth is more families will be served. The second truth is more kids with unique abilities will be served.” He insisted more money would go to children on McKay and Gardiner and that “the bill expands choice for children with disabilities. That is a fact and that is a truth regardless of what folks standing at that podium say.” You can watch the exchange at 1:08:00).

Despite testimony from Camille Gardiner (the Gardiner scholarship was named for her husband, former Senate President, Andy Gardiner) warning “there are so many unintended consequences in this bill. This will be the beginning of chipping away at something this legislature set up to support our fellow citizens that have children with the most significant disabilities,” HB7045 went on to pass the House and Senate, without addressing the Gardiner family concerns, and was signed into law by Governor Desantis (twice!). 

If HB7045 was so great for families of children with disabilities, then why are they so upset right now?

Posted by a Gardiner parent on Facebook yesterday:

“Last spring, legislators in their “infinite wisdom”, decided to ignore parent and provider concerns, and re-write the legislation, expanding the scholarship through the state. We told them that SUFS systems couldn’t handle it, but the CEO went on television and said they could, so we parents that struggle every day with using the system were pushed to the sidelines, and treated like over-reacting hysterical crazies. Fast forward to now. Funding for this year’s scholarship was increased to accommodate 20k students with unique abilities. 25% of eligible students were NOT funded, and are being told they will need to wait until November for the error to be fixed. Oh, and by statute, renewals get funded first, yet they are the ones NOT funded and NEW students have been funded.”

It is unclear what the problem is exactly. It appears that as many as 4000 students, many prior Gardiner recipients who were promised their child’s funding would remain secure, will have their first quarter funding delayed because of some sort of snafu with their “cross check,” which is required to ensure the child is not simultaneously enrolled in a public school. Families are asking questions and the answers they are receiving from the FLDOE and various SUFS representatives differ. For the record, the first quarter payments for $4,000 students amounts to, all together, approximately $10 million (using $10,000 as the estimated funding for the Gardiner recipient).

On Facebook and Twitter, SUFS admitted they were “aware of the challenges with the first quarterly scholarship payments” and advised parents to “continue to watch your email closely this week for updates.” Families responded with a slew of long held grievances. Here is a sampling of their replies.

And my personal favorite:

On another thread a mom explained that parents have been frustrated by the management of the scholarship programs for years and parents have expressed those concerns to lawmakers. “Doug Tuthill brags about the things that his company can do, but can’t. Legislators changed the law because he said they could handle it, but they can’t. What will happen next year, when McKay rolls in with another 40k students? This year’s increase (for the special needs students) was only to 20k.”

Have lawmakers turned a blind eye to concerns regarding the management of Florida’s billion dollar (annually) voucher system? If they had been listening, even SUFS was concerned they wouldn’t be able to handle the HB7045 expansion. In January 2021, excited by the prospect of SB48 (HB7045’s companion bill) and its conversion of all existing voucher programs into Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), Step Up For Students CEO, Doug Tuthill, interviewed two members of his leadership team regarding the complexities of managing ESA programs and the challenges anticipated with the proposed massive expansion planned for the 2021 legislative session:

“Talk to me about the terror that brings to you when you think about going from 20,000 to 230,000 – what are the things that you guys doing with your team to prepare…

Their answer at the time was they were developing automated technology and using artificial intelligence and algorithms to monitor and guide purchasers on their site. Tuthill saw the use of Artificial Intelligence as vital to the future of ESAs. Still, even Tuthill suggested that the planned massive expansion seemed “crazy.”  How could a small non-profit in Florida manage such a massive expansion? 

It appears that they can’t.

With the funding of thousands of eligible recipients on hold, leaving families on their own, at least for the time being to fund the many educational services their children, families are angry. Legislators are being contacted now.

What are the Gardiner families asking for now? The same thing Accountabaloney has been calling for for years, improved state oversight of this billion dollar, publicly funded program. Gardiner families are organizing campaigns that highlight how Step Up for Students, in particular, creates hardships for the families they service. Their concerns include:

1. Software programs that are inconsistent and antiquated, requiring excessive amounts of time to upload reimbursements or failing to function at all.
2. Reimbursements taking 5-6 weeks to process, placing  a burden on parents who don’t have the personal funds cover their child’s necessary educational expenses in the meantime.
3. A call center and online chat representatives who are poorly trained and may provide inaccurate information. When parents get false information, they cannot use the scholarship correctly.
4. Rule changes without notice, leaving parents fully responsible for purchases that previously would have been covered.
5. A management that is resistant to parental concerns and often ignore parent emails or deny that issues are happening.
6. SUFS’s CEO, Doug Tuthill went on television bragging that they spend millions of dollars on their computer systems every year and that they work just fine. (You can watch Tuthill make his claim here at about 18:20). Now 25% of his clients are not getting what they were promised. If this had happened in any other billion dollar corporation, one parent noted, the CEO would be fired.

The Gardiner families are understandably concerned that the continued mismanagement of these public funds could ultimately jeopardize the scholarship for our State’s most unique learners. They are asking that oversight of the scholarship funding organizations should become a legislative priority in the upcoming session. Taxpayers should be joining in the call. Why is a private, non profit managing (mismanaging?) a billion dollar program designed to serve our most at risk students? Where is the oversight? It’s time for the Legislature to take off their blinders and take a serious look at these programs they’ve created.