Yet some members of the State Board of Education worry application requirements will be too onerous for the low-income families the law largely is designed to serve.

At their meeting today, board members will review and vote whether to adopt a new rule outlining how the state office of education (USOE) will implement Utah's new school voucher law. The rule tries to strike a balance between cost-effective oversight and application ease for parents.

"How do you balance the needs of parents and not spend a lot of money?" said Thomas Gregory, a board member from Provo. "We're trying to both provide reasonable oversight as well as be conservative with the resources we have to administer the program."

The Legislature allotted $200,000 for oversight, enough for about three employees, state staffers told a board committee last month.

A referendum effort could temporarily or permanently table the law, but state education officials are proceeding as if it will debut on schedule this fall. To comply with the law's time tables, the board must adopt a rule at today's meeting and begin accepting applications this summer.

The law requires the state education office to set up an online application process so parents can apply for private school tuition assistance based on household size and income.

The USOE also will compile a list of eligible private schools that meet more than a dozen criteria.

The rule outlines how parents and schools will demonstrate their eligibility and how the state office will implement and police the program. The draft rule requires parents and schools to submit signed, notarized statements attesting to the truthfulness of their applications.

Parents and schools must also agree to keep the relevant documents on file because the USOE will perform random and targeted audits to verify family income and school compliance.

"We just want to make sure those accountability measures in the bill are fully implemented," said Jean Welch Hill, a USOE school law and legislation specialist. "I don't know that an affidavit can protect you from fraud," but it can provide recourse if officials discover wrongdoing, she said.

Yet some of those provisions triggered concern among Gregory and other board members when they reviewed a draft of the rule at March's meeting. He worried that requiring notarized statements and a file full of documents would unfairly burden poor families.

"It's a paperwork burden for the parents, but on the same token . . . for the most part these are tax documents we should be keeping anyway," he said Wednesday. "I'm hoping it won't be too onerous, particularly for low-income [families]."

He said he still has some concerns about the rule but hopes most can be corrected before the board adopts it. Hill agreed that the concerns she's heard to date can be addressed through minor changes.