Gov. Greg Abbott earlier this year signed a law authorizing a $1 billion private school voucher program, tapping the state comptroller’s office as the entity responsible for its creation.
The law grants Texas’ chief financial officer tremendous authority to build the infrastructure around education savings accounts, a type of voucher program that will allow families to receive taxpayer money to cover their children’s private school or home-schooling costs.
The agency’s responsibilities include choosing the companies that will receive millions of dollars to help administer the program, creating the rules that participating families must follow and producing annual reports on the program’s outcomes.
Former Texas Sen. Kelly Hancock currently serves as acting comptroller and will guide most of the program’s development before it launches next year. The North Richland Hills Republican filled the position after Glenn Hegar stepped down to lead the Texas A&M University System.
The comptroller is an elected position, and voters will decide next year who will occupy the role for the next four-year term. Hancock is running to keep the seat against Texas Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick and former state Sen. Don Huffines, R-Dallas, the other two candidates in the Republican primary who plan to run for comptroller.
State law provides the comptroller with a framework for how to structure the program, but the office will ultimately determine what exactly it will look like ahead of its official launch at the start of the 2026-27 school year.
Here’s what you need to know about the comptroller’s role in shaping the voucher program.
What does the comptroller do?
The comptroller manages the state’s money and collects taxes, estimates revenue and awards state contracts.
Texas operates a $337 billion budget and rakes in more than $250 billion in revenue from a variety of taxes, fees and assessments.
What is the comptroller’s role in shaping the state’s school voucher program?
The comptroller’s office will oversee the $1 billion program’s implementation. It will negotiate contracts with and select the companies responsible for helping manage the day-to-day operations. Those companies will help the state respond to inquiries, process payments and resolve complaints, among other duties.
The agency will also design the program’s rules. It will work with vendors to determine which private schools can receive state money through the program, when families can apply to participate, what documentation Texans have to submit and how participants will access funds to make approved educational purchases.
The comptroller must hire a private company to audit the program at least once a year to ensure participants, schools and vendors are following state requirements. The agency can close the accounts of students who do not remain in good standing. It must also notify the appropriate county or district attorney in the local jurisdiction of any family, school or company that appears to have committed fraud or broken the law.
State law requires the office to collect and publish annual data on the program, such as the number of applications it receives and accepts, participant satisfaction, and how the program affects private school capacity and Texas’ public education system. The comptroller is required to provide state lawmakers with the demographic information of participants, such as age, race and sex. The finance chief can also ask the Legislature to increase the program’s funding.
What has the comptroller done to build the program so far?
The office released the proposed rules for the program earlier this year. It invited Texans to submit comments on the proposal over a 30-day period that concluded in September and conducted a public hearing soon after.
The comptroller also accepted bids from companies interested in helping manage the program — officially called Texas Education Freedom Accounts — later agreeing to a contract with the New York-based finance and technology company Odyssey.
The state could end up paying Odyssey up to $52 million for its services over the next four years — $26 million for the first two and an additional $26 million for another two if the contract gets renewed. The law allows the state to pay the company up to 5% of the program’s $1 billion in funding, or $50 million, each year.
The agency is expected to launch its marketing campaign for the program around the end of October.
What else needs to happen before the program launches?
The comptroller has yet to open registration for Texas private schools looking to participate in the program, as well as the process for families to apply.
Odyssey and the comptroller agreed to a plan that sets a tentative date of Dec. 2 for private schools to register to become one of the options families can select to spend funds awarded by the state.
The agreement also set Feb. 4, 2026, as the date when Texas will begin accepting applications from families seeking state aid to pay for their children’s private school or home-schooling expenses. That window would remain open until mid-March. Odyssey will design those processes and the system parents will use to pay tuition.
Under the current plan, the state is expected to provide a status update for students it approves by May 1, 2026. State law sets May 15, 2026, as the date the comptroller must finalize the program rules.
The tuition platform families will use is expected to launch in early July.
What do we know about the candidates running for the office?
So far, three candidates are expected to run to be the state’s next comptroller.
Abbott appointed Hancock, a former state senator, as interim comptroller in June. Hancock is vying against Craddick, the Texas Railroad Commissioner, and Huffines, the former state senator, in the Republican primary. No Democrat has publicly expressed interest in the office.
None of the candidates could be reached for interviews before publication. Hancock, who is overseeing the creation of the state’s voucher program, has toured campuses across the state to promote it. In a statement, Craddick said that her top priority for the voucher program as comptroller would be to ensure “every dollar is used exactly as intended.” It is not clear if Huffines has any plans for the voucher program, but he supported its creation when he served in the Legislature.
Disclosure: Texas A&M University System has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
