"There's not a lot of capacity in eligible schools now," Shumway said. "I think there have been a lot of parents who are grateful for the help. Schools and parents and districts worked very well together to help this program get off the ground."

Scholarship advocates, including Education Excellence Utah, have criticized the State School Board for taking until July to set rules on which schools can accept scholarship students. They say that could have affected the number of parents applying.

Still, parents are thrilled the scholarships finally are here.

"What this has done is make it a little more feasible (to choose schools) based on what he needs — not what we can afford," said Laura Anderson, whose son, Ty, attends the Pingree school. "We were able to pay off this year's tuition. I can't tell you what a relief it is. . . . I don't have to worry through the holidays, do I do Christmas or do I do tuition, which actually happened last year. It's taken a load off our family."

But there's another issue at hand: Fewer than half of this school year's scholarship recipients transferred from public to private schools. That matters in terms of money for public schools' special education programs.

Public schools are largely funded through weighted pupil units, which are tied to the number of students in each program. WPUs are formula driven and complex. But the premise is, if a school has 500 students, it gets 500 WPUs from the state. If it has just 400 students next year, it gets only 400 WPUs.

So, if special education students are expected to leave the public school system under Carson Smith scholarships, then the schools don't need as many WPUs.

The schools' budget was cut $903,300 to make way for the scholarships. But only one-third of that cost savings was realized, the State Office of Education reports.

Sixty-three students transferred from public to private schools under the scholarship program. That equals $301,200 in state per-pupil spending, State Associate Superintendent Patrick Ogden said.

That means public schools basically are getting $600,000 less to educate nearly as many kids.

"School districts receive their allocations based on students served," state special education director Karl Wilson said. "So reducing that funding . . . is of concern."

Wilson says the cut could affect districts' ability to expand services, but he's not sure how it actually shook out.

Jordan District estimates 32 scholarship students live in its boundaries, said Cal Evans, district executive director for compliance and special programs. So there, the law's budgetary affects are a wash.

But no Nebo or San Juan students are known to have taken the scholarship. So those districts, for example, logically would take a hit.