Appeals court to hear arguments in Florida tax credit scholarship case

From the News Service of Florida

A state appeals court will hear arguments May 10 in a lawsuit led by the Florida Education Association challenging the state’s Tax Credit Scholarship Program.

The 1st District Court of Appeal last week set the hearing date after Leon County Circuit Judge George Reynolds tossed out the lawsuit in May 2015 because he ruled the plaintiffs did not have legal “standing.” The voucher-like Tax Credit Scholarship program provides tax credits to companies that donate money to non-profit entities that help pay for low-income children to attend private schools. In a brief filed in August with the appeals court, the plaintiffs argued they have standing to challenge the constitutionality of the program.

“Appellants (the plaintiffs) pled specific injuries resulting from the scholarship program, asserting that the diversion of tax revenues to send students to private schools in Florida intentionally and necessarily results in significant reduced funding to Florida’s public schools to the detriment of the students, teachers, and others associated with the schools represented in this lawsuit,” the brief said.

But attorneys for the state, in a December brief, disputed that the plaintiffs have standing.

“(The) trial court correctly ruled appellants have not identified any special injury stemming from the scholarship program,” the state brief said. “Appellants’ theory of harm hinges on the conclusory allegations that they ‘have been and will continue to be injured by the scholarship program’s diversion of resources from the public schools.’ But these allegations, and the theories of harm underlying them, are necessarily speculative and wholly insufficient to confer standing.”

Step Up For Students, which publishes this blog, helps administer the scholarship program in Florida.


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BY Special to NextSteps