Arizona's Voucher Scheme a Hotbed of Fraud
1 in 5 purchases made with voucher funds deemed "unallowable"
Save Our Schools Arizona reports on the rampant fraud in that state’s school voucher scheme:
Arizona Republican leaders and Superintendent Tom Horne have long insisted that fraud in Arizona’s ESA voucher program is minimal. “One percent or less,” Horne often has said — but 12News has obtained new public records from Horne’s AZ Dept. of Education (ADE) that tell a very different story. Documents show unallowable purchases — spending explicitly banned under ESA voucher program rules — may account for about 20 percent of transactions. That’s one in five.
In 2025, 12News Investigates revealed parents used ESA voucher funds for non-educational purchases, including: diamond rings, smart TVs, gift cards, large appliances, luxury clothing, and lingerie.
These purchases are among more than 100 prohibited items listed in the ESA Parent Handbook. Accounts that make such purchases are supposed to be suspended or removed from the program by the ADE. However, according to 12News, “the spending continues as Horne contends his department uses risk-based auditing that will eventually catch wrongdoing.”
84,000 unallowable purchases??? 12News found an ADE memo covering ESA voucher spending from December 2022 through last September found that of 385,000 ESA purchases reviewed by Horne’s ADE, nearly 84,000 were deemed unallowable — or more than 20 percent of all transactions that should have been refused by the ADE!
Thanks for writing about this Andy. The good news is that Save Our Schools AZ and the Arizona Education Association have filed an initiative to implement common-sense safety protections for students on vouchers, demand accountability and transparency from private and homeschools accepting vouchers, and put an income cap in-place for voucher eligibility. More information is available at protectedaz.com.