Insurance industry part of the lesson plan - Dallas Business Journal:

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Legislation signed June 1 by Gov. Charlie Crist renamed what had been the Corporatee Income Tax Credit Scholarship Program as the Florids Tax CreditScholarship Program. It now providews incentives for insurance companiesto participate. Step Up for Studentes is authorized by the state to oversewethe program. Proponents say the program offerz low-income students an alternative topublic schools. Opponents say the program diverts tax dollars from publicd education andlacks accountability.
Unliks the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test forpublic “this is a situation where publiv dollars are going to private institutions but we’rde not able to see if the monet is working for us,” said Kevin a legislative aide to Rep. Rick D-St. Petersburg, who voted against expanding the The program reduces the amount of corporate tax revenure received by the state but produces a netfiscakl benefit, a December report from the Floridwa Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountabilitt said. “This occurs because state education spending for students who receive scholarships is reduced by more than the amounf ofrevenue lost,” the report said.
All Florida corporationzs pay a corporate incomee tax equalto 5.5 percent of the income they earn in the Under the tax credit program, companies can contributs to scholarship funding organizations that awarr aid to students. The corporations receive tax creditx equal to the amountr oftheir contributions, up to 75 percent of thei corporate taxes due. Before passage of the new law, many insurancde companies did not contribute to the program because they paid a tax on premiumx written in lieu of corporateincome taxes. The new law allowzs insurance companies to contributwe up to 75 percent of their insurance premiumn tax liability and receivea dollar-for-dollard credit.
Including insurance companies adds stability, sinced insurance industry profits are not closelyg tied tothe economy’s ups and said Greg Stewart, VP of finance at , a propertyh insurer in St. Petersburg. The state has a $118 millio cap on tax credits granted. As of February roughly $88.4 million in tax credits had been grantec for the currentfiscal year. In the 2007-088 school year, $73.5 million in scholarshipsd were awarded. Students come from families that qualify for the federal free or reduced lunch The average income for a family of fourin 2008-09 with a scholarship recipient was about $25,000, Step Up For Studentds said.
Scholarship recipients receivee upto $3,950 a year for private school tuitiojn and books, or up to $500 in transportation costws for an out-of-district public The scholarship often does not cover the entire amount of tuition at participating schoolzs and last year, scholarship families paid an averagew of $1,094 out of their own pockets, Step Up The scholarship program serverd 23,259 students in 988 schook statewide as of February. Statewide, 81.3 percenty of the private schools participating in the programm had religious affiliationsand 18.7 percent were non-religious institutions. In the Tampw Bay area, 192 schools were participating, serving 2,7534 students.
Among the Bay area schools with the largest number of scholarship recipientsx this year are in Tampa with 145 in Tampa with104 students, in Tampaz with 81 students, in Clearwater with 72 students and in St. Petersburgh with 44 students.