Legislation

Governor Fallin signed HB 1693 last week. It passed the House and Senate by large margins. HB 1693 was designed to improve the current legislation authorizing our OSF. The bill was carried  State Representative Kevin Calvey and State Senator Kyle Loveless. ENHANCED TAX CREDIT: The most universal improvement was the change of the benefits to multi-year donors. Effective January 1, 2016, donors committing to the same amount for TWO consecutive years will receive 75% tax credits for BOTH years. This an improvement…

The Law and the Opportunity Scholarship Fund agreement requires schools to state that they will not discriminate in admissions based upon disability. This has caused some concern among schools. It should not. Schools may be concerned that this requirement means they must admit any disabled student regardless of the severity of the disability or the additional resources a school would require to provide. It does not. The following is the position of the OSF Board of Directors. This provision applies…

The Florida program was launched in 2001. In the 2013-14 school year alone, the program awarded almost 60,000 scholarships at an average value of $4,663 each. The program is capped at $286 million in tax credits.  There is no personal income tax in Florida so all the generated scholarship money is from private business. Florida businesses receive generous dollar for dollar tax credits. It is estimated that 30% of Florida's students can qualify for the scholarships whereas 80% of Oklahoma…