Although the School District of Lee County grew by 776 students in the last survey period, the McKay Scholarship Program and Family Empowerment Scholarship Program grew substantially, which ended up costing the district about $12 million.

Budget Director Kelly Letcher said with the 776 student growth, the district gained $4 million.

“The reduction was the payment to the state back for McKay and FES students and not the loss of our students,” Letcher said.

The McKay Scholarship program gives parents the opportunity to choose the best education setting for their child, either public or private. The Family Empowerment Scholarship has two branches — educational options — based on family income for K-12 students to attend a participating private school — and students with unique abilities — additional education options.

The only time student attendance has an impact on FEFP (Florida Education Finance Program) is if the student is out the whole survey period in that 11-day window. Fletcher said the district has a survey week, which is five days with six preceding days that the student can be in attendance.

“If they are in attendance any one of those days we can count them,” she said. “The student would have to be out the full 11 days in order for us to lose FEFP for students who were not in attendance.””

McKay and FES has two programs, according to Letcher.

She said the program pays the parent, which is set up like a saving account to pay for their student’s education, while the other one goes to the private school of the parent’s choice.

“What has happened with FES this year is the state has used a third-party company. Basically the parents apply to the third party company and they get their payment. What we have found is there is not a lot of checks and balances built into that system unlike McKay,” Letcher said. “In our October survey we had 80 something kids that were actually sitting in our traditional schools being taught that parents had been provided funding through the FES to cover the cost of educating the student. We have been in contact with the state. We are trying to work with them to see what we can do to get that money back. They keep saying we have to work through the third party company.”

In the district’s second survey they still had more than 70 students whose parents received funding.

“It’s disheartening because we are getting hit twice. We are paying to educate the students. We have the teachers in the classrooms and we are doing everything we can and yet the parents have been paid, or a private school. In most cases parents have been paid the dollars for the education of their students,” Letcher said.

She said they have also had students reported in both of the programs with money taken from the district for both programs, but the district can only report them once, losing the district money.

“They keep the money, we never see the payments,” Letcher said.

Superintendent Dr. Ken Savage said this is money taken away from such things as collective bargaining, with a pretty hefty price tag. He said it is a very concerning process where the person left holding the bag is the district, which is providing services to all of their students, and they are the ones essentially charged with it until it gets appropriately resolved.

“I can’t believe there is not outrage across the state. This is a lot of money if you multiple it by 67 counties,” Board member Cathleen Morgan said. “This is massive.”