- April 24, 2024
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A Flagler County resident who heads the local branch of the State Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida and the board of trustees of Americans United for Separation of Church and State has joined a lawsuit against Governor Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet over the offering of tax credits to parents who send their children to religious private schools.
“Our major concern is that more than 70% of the schools involved who receive students are religious schools,” said Merrill Shapiro, the former rabbi of Palm Coast's Temple Beth Shalom and current rabbi of Temple Shalom of Deltona. “So, for example, Seventh Day Adventists, who notoriously don’t get along well with Catholics, they have to pay into the coffers for the Catholic kids to study religion in Catholic schools. Catholics are paying so that Presbyterians can learn about their religion. Mormons are paying so that Muslims can learn about their religion. Muslims are paying so that Jews can learn about their religion.”
And taxpayers who aren’t Christian, he said, have their tax dollars sent “to schools that teach children that because we are not Christians, we are going to hell.”
In Flagler County, four schools receive money through the program: Christ the King Lutheran School, the First Baptist Christian Academy, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic School and the Flagler Beach Montessori School.
The suit, filed Aug. 28 in the Second Judicial Circuit Court for Leon County, says Florida’s private school tax credit system “violates state constitutional provisions prohibiting tax-subsidized aid to religious schools and guaranteeing a uniform public education,” according to an Americans United news release.
“Florida has a program called the corporate tax scholarship fund, in which corporations, like Walgreens, instead of paying state income tax as corporate entities do, in Florida, they’re able to write a check to a scholarship funding organization — and a typical donation is like $7 million,” Shapiro said. “Who makes up the $7 million that the state treasury doesn’t get? You and me.”
The money from the corporations is disbursed to parents, who then use it to sent heir children to private schools.
The Florida Supreme Court struck down a similar Florida voucher program, called the Opportunity Scholarship program, in 2006.
The complaint in the new lawsuit, McCall v. Scott, says that the “Florida Constitution provides in pertinent part that ‘no revenue of the state or any political subdivision or agency thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution,’” and that the program violates Florida’s constitution by diverting money from the public school system.
Americans United Associate Legal Director Alex J. Luchenitser, in the news release, called the program “nothing more than a money-laundering scheme intended to circumvent the clear prohibitions of the Florida state constitution.”
Other plaintiffs in the case are: Americans United Clay County Chapter president the Rev. Harry Parrott Jr.; former Americans United South Pinellas County Chapter president the Rev. Harold Brockus; the Florida Association of School Administrators; the League of Women Voters’ Florida affiliate; the Florida State Conference of Branches of NAACP; the National Education Association; the American Federation of Teachers and the Florida Education Association.
To view the legal complaint for McCall v. Scott, click here.
