Copyright postandcourier
Education officials said state law doesn’t provide a mechanism for clawing back the voucher money, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have asked people to return it when they explained they would not be distributing any more. They should have. They still should. They also should have asked the Legislature to fix that big fat hole in state law. They still should do this as well. Not that the Legislature should need to be asked. A spokesman pointed us instead to a provision in the law that allows the agency to refer any instances of “substantial misuse” of voucher money to law enforcement. We’re glad that option is in the law, sort of: We're not aware of state agencies needing special statutory permission to report possible fraud to law enforcement; it strikes us more as language that was inserted into the law so legislators could claim they added some safeguards in a law that has practically none. Beyond that, reporting to law enforcement any instances of “substantial misuse” — which the law defines as “wilfully and knowingly receiving or spending any portion of a scholarship for any purpose other than a qualifying expense” — shouldn’t be optional; it should be mandatory. Moreover, there should be a step between “prosecute someone for fraud” and “let the parents keep taxpayer money to which they had no legal right.” That step should require the Education Department to order parents to return the money. Whether the parents willfully and knowingly defrauded our state or were just careless, getting our money back should be on somebody's to-do list.
