Education officials push back on state audit critical of Arizona ESA program

Arizona Department of Education officials are disputing the findings of a recent state audit report on the Empowerment Scholarship Account school voucher program.

The Arizona Auditor General’s Office report documents issues found in programs across the state government, including ESAs, which are taxpayer-funded vouchers families can use for private school or homeschooling expenses if they don’t send their kids to public schools.

Over 101,000 students are currently enrolled in the ESA program, which was created for students who met certain qualifications in 2011 and became universal in 2022.

The audit report raised questions about how the Department of Education monitors ESA spending as well as potential conflicts of interest within the program.

“I’ve been in statewide office for 15 years. I’ve never complained about a prior auditor general. Sometimes they criticize us. We’re not perfect. We accept those criticisms, but this is totally inaccurate,” Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show on Thursday.

Empowerment Scholarship Account Executive Director John Ward joined Horne for the interview. Both men defended how the ESA program operates.

“We’ve done our own statistical study that met very strict methodological requirements of our $1 billion program, [and] 2% of all spending in the program is unallowable. So, despite what is in the auditor general’s report, this is a program with a very low incidence of misspending,” Ward said.

Arizona ESA director says he helped two families get faster reimbursements

Ward also addressed the conflict-of-interest allegations. He acknowledged that he fast-tracked the reimbursement process for two families he’d met when the program was working through a four-month backlog.

“These were families who did not have a lot of financial means. They really needed that money reimbursed as quickly as possible. So when I got back to the office, I asked that those two families be put on a manual review list,” he said.

Reimbursement requests that go through the manual review queue are processed faster, he explained.

“I couldn’t do that for every member of the ESA program, but I did it for these two people because I felt compelled to help them out. These were people I had never met previously, I’ve never talked to since. And so, that’s why they were never disclosed by me as conflicts of interest,” he said.

Ward said he gave the audit team that explanation, but it was disregarded.

Horne said he complained about inaccuracies to the Arizona Legislature, which provides direction for the Auditor General’s Office, while the audit was ongoing.

“The Legislature said all the agencies are bellyaching about the auditor general. So it’s not just us; everybody feels they’re being unfair,” Horne said.

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