Arizona Voucher Scheme Under Scrutiny
Attorney General investigates fraud, abuse in state's runaway school voucher scheme
Arizona’s private school coupon scheme is highly problematic. The program costs tons of money and is rife with fraud and abuse.
Now, the state’s Attorney General is taking a look - especially since the state Department of Education seems eager to allow a significant percentage of funds to be spent without review.
Attorney General Mayes revealed she’s been conducting a major “public monies investigation” into Supt. Horne’s automatic $2000-and-under approval policy for reimbursing anything purchased in the voucher program. As spokesperson Richie Taylor shared with 12News, “Arizonans should be concerned the ESA [voucher] program has such little oversight that these items were ever allowed to be purchased in the first place.” Horne protested, accusing Mayes of being “hypocritical” for not prosecuting some cases of ESA voucher fraud that the AZ Dept. of Education (ADE) has sent to her office, but the AG’s office, in response, noted that they can only prosecute cases with a reasonable likelihood of conviction and that many of the cases did not meet the standard.
While states like Arizona and Florida continue to report excessive spending and rampant abuse in their voucher schemes, Tennessee - a relative newbie to school vouchers - seems intent on catching up.
In fact, some are planning an all-out assault on the state budget by attempting to corral 200,000+ students into private schools paid for by vouchers in just the next 5 years.
Back to Arizona - and a warning for TN taxpayers of what may happen unless the state reins in its voucher scheme:
Thanks to the total lack of oversight from the ADE, we have no idea how many fraudulent or non-educational purchases are being approved, how many accounts are being closed, or how many taxpayer dollars they have been unable to recoup. Horne claims that his office has closed 700 voucher accounts due to mispending; however, that figure covers three years, and it is unclear how many accounts have been closed since the automatic approval policy was enacted a year ago.