


Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said Sunday that she planned to sue state Superintendent Tom Horne after an investigation revealed that millions of dollars in funding for the state’s school voucher program were misused.
Horne has been defiant of Mayes’s order to change spending with Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, or state school vouchers. An investigative report from 12News found $124 million in purchases under the taxpayer-funded school voucher program received blanket approvals, and many luxury purchases were made, including diamond rings, cellphones, vacations, and clothing.
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Following the report, Mayes ordered Horne to stop automatic approvals of ESA purchases of under $2,000, which are prohibited by the ESA Parent Handbook.
“If he’s going to continue to allow a system in which taxpayers are cheated out of their hard-earned money through the ESA program in contravention of the law, we’re going to have to take action in the courts to stop it,” Mayes told 12News. “We really didn’t want to have this come to pass.”
Horne claimed that her order “was completely unfactual.”
“Her argument is with the Legislature, not with me. … We are told to pay [the reimbursement requests] and then audit them afterwards and get the money back,” he told the outlet. “And that’s exactly what we’re doing. That’s what the Legislature dictated.”
Arizona’s ESA program gives families up to $40,000 in taxpayer money to educate their children in private schools or through homeschooling. There are an estimated 90,000 students who receive ESA funds, accounting for about 9% of Arizona’s K-12 student population. It will cost the state $1 billion this school year.
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Late last year, the Arizona Department of Education began automatically approving all ESA requests due to a large backlog.
Since then, around 200 iPhones, more than 50 smart TVs, two diamond rings, airline tickets, and dozens of gift cards worth up to $500 each have been discovered to have been purchased using ESA funds. Other items that were automatically approved include purchases at SeaWorld in San Diego, Lego sets, above-ground pools, washers and dryers, and lingerie. The report also found more than $3 million in purchases to Amazon, Costco, and Best Buy, with no itemization of what was purchased.