DES MOINES, Iowa (KCRG) – The State of Iowa released new information Thursday about the number of students who received approval for an education savings account voucher. Nearly 19,000 Iowa students received state approval for a private school voucher. Here’s a breakdown of the new information:

• 29,612 ESA applications were submitted
• 18,893 applications were approved
• 5,927 were denied because of residency or income requirements
• 4,792 applications were closed because they were duplicates or the applicant wanted to close it

The state also released data related to how many approved applications each county in the state of Iowa had. Polk County had the most approved applications in the state, with 3,179. Sioux, Scott and Linn counties each had more than 1,000 applications. Pottawattamie County had 403 approved applications. Decatur, Louisa and Ringgold counties had zero approved applications.

Democratic House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst told KCRG_TV she’s concerned that the number of approved vouchers is already over budget. “So, we had planned and we had been told that the program would cost $107 million dollars. We’re now at $144 million dollars that this program will cost and so those are taxpayer dollars that are leaving public education and going to private schools,” Konfrst said.

Konfrst says she’s worried about the effects of the program on rural schools. “We don’t know what happens when a school closes in a community. I worry about these communities as the state sends more dollars to private school and fewer to public school,” Konfrst said. Konfrst says school vouchers are an opportunity for the Democratic Party to make gains in the next election.

“School vouchers are unpopular with Democrats, they’re unpopular with Republicans, and they’re unpopular with ‘no party’ voters. Iowans can smell when something isn’t right and they know it’s not right to send $144 million dollars of our tax dollars to private schools,” Konfrst said.

Right now, only the number of approved vouchers has been released. We don’t yet have the total number of students who were approved for a voucher that then decided to leave public school. Districts have until October 15th to report that to the state. In a statement, Governor Reynolds says, “These numbers reflect that Iowans were hungry for educational freedom. Empowering parents wasn’t just a campaign slogan or empty rhetoric. It was a promise, and I am excited to say we are delivering.”