An Alabama House committee on Tuesday (April 22) approved a $12.1 billion education budget package, including an additional $80 million for the state’s new school choice program, nearly doubling the original allocation.
The House Ways and Means Education Committee approved moving the extra funds from the Education Opportunities Reserve Fund to the CHOOSE Act fund. The EORF was established in 2023 to hold surplus tax revenues for future education needs.
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“We initially appropriated $100 million for the CHOOSE Act, and that was based on roughly 15,000 or 16,000 students,” House Education Budget Chairman Danny Garrett, R-Trussville, explained. “We’ve had applications that are up to around 36, 37 thousand.”
The CHOOSE Act provides up to $7,000 for education savings accounts for eligible families to use for public school out-of-district or private school tuition along with other approved educational expenses. Homeschoolers are eligible for $2,000 per student, up to $4,000 per family.
“We want to make sure that anyone that applied, that’s under that income cap requirement for the first year, is able to be accommodated,” Garrett said.
Eligibility is limited to families with adjusted gross incomes below 300% of the federal poverty level for the first two years of the program. According to the Alabama Department of Revenue, about 75% of Alabama families meet those guidelines.
The newly-added $80 million will be temporarily set aside, Garrett added.
“Whatever money is not used for those applications will revert back to the reserve fund,” he said.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Trisha Powell Crain and originally published by Alabama Daily News.
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