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In case you missed it, New Hampshire Public Radio published a story this morning detailing spending around so-called education freedom accounts — school vouchers which use taxpayer funds to be spent at private, often religious, schools.
Among the findings was $28,750 paid directly to the wife of Republican House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, a key architect of the program’s passage and implementation.
Democrats in the New Hampshire legislature have called for more transparency around and oversight of how taxpayer funds connected to the program are spent, but such efforts have been spurned by Republican Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut, another champion of the voucher scheme.
This is not the first instance of Rep. Osborne coming into large sums of taxpayer money. In 2020 a student loan debt collection business Rep. Osborne inherited from his father took $4 million in PPP loans just before laying off its 100+ member workforce and shutting down. According to records the loan was never repaid.
This is just the latest of Rep. Osborne’s public scandals. Last year his use of racist slurs was uncovered on online forums from when he was in his 30s.
Key Excerpts:
Republican lawmakers are pushing to expand Education Freedom Accounts this year, citing the program’s popularity. Among the program’s biggest supporters in the Legislature is House Majority Leader Jason Osborne. According to records, a homeschooling company run by his wife received $28,750 last year in Education Freedom Account funding.
Families participating in the state’s new voucher-like school choice program spent the bulk of their state aid at Amazon.com and at local private schools.
Of the money that went to private schools, a little over $2 million went to private Christian schools. Trinity Christian School in Concord and Laconia Christian Academy were the single largest private school beneficiaries, each receiving about $227,000 in Education Freedom Account money.