Horne says waiver could allow Arizona schools to recover $29 million in funding as Dems call for audit

PHOENIX — Arizona’s schools chief said Monday that the U.S. Department of Education (ED) has offered a waiver that would potentially recover $29 million in federal funding that had gone unused in prior years.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said the education department reached out on Thursday to encourage his department to apply for a Tydings waiver that would allow excess Title 1 funds accrued because they weren’t allocated starting in the federal fiscal year 2020.

Horne has said the previous regime is at fault, while his predecessor and the governor have pointed their fingers back at him. As first reported by the Arizona Republic, the state Department of Education had to return the millions in federal school improvement money because it had expired.

Horne told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Monday he believes the federal government reached out to him because Arizona wasn’t the only state dealing with the issue.

“I think what happened is the people who work for them took a while to calculate what got spent and what didn’t get spent and when they saw how much didn’t get spent nationwide, they figured they should give us another chance to spend it for the schools,” Horne said.

Who is to blame for unused millions for Arizona schools?

The saga has gone public for about a week since the original Republic report was released.

The state education department notified about 150-200 public district and charter schools last month that their grants for the new school year were being cut, according to the Republic. The state’s largest newspaper also reported that Horne’s department told schools they could still apply for the funding this year before realizing it was no longer available.

The Department of Education confirmed the loss, but Horne, a Republican who took office in January 2023, has taken issue with how the Republic portrayed his role in the situation.

The returned money was allocated for fiscal years 2021 and 2022. In a letter last Tuesday to the Republic’s news director in which he calls for a retraction, Horne said the funding had to be allocated by schools July 1, 2022 – before he took office – and spent by Sept. 30, 2023.

Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, and six Arizona House members called for a Joint Legislative Audit Committee special audit of the funding.

“I commend the members of the state legislature who are demanding accountability and transparency,” Hobbs said in a press release. “It is unconscionable that Superintendent Horne has let tens of millions of dollars disappear from our schools—critical federal funding that helps students succeed.

“I sincerely hope that the Joint Legislative Audit Committee takes up this investigation and finds out what happened to these resources. Our kids deserve better.”

Horne said that his predecessor, Democrat Kathy Hoffman, is the one who should be investigated.

Horne has put the blame on an employee who was a holdover from when Hoffman was the state’s superintendent of public instruction.

“I don’t think there’s any need for an audit, the mistake was made by our predecessor,” Horne said. “If the governor wants an audit, she’d have to be auditing my predecessor, who was a friend of hers. So, she may not want to do that.”

KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Heidi Hommel contributed to this report.

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