Tom Horne blames ESA reimbursement backlog on staffing, Legislature, attorney general

PHOENIX — Arizona’s top education official says his department needs more workers to process reimbursement for the state’s universal school voucher program.

Many parents are waiting to receive thousands of dollars through the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Program (ESA). This program allows families who don’t send their kids to public schools to be reimbursed for some of their educational expenses, including private school tuition and homeschooling supplies.

In fact, there are around 90,000 ESA reimbursement requests the Arizona Department of Education hasn’t processed, a spokesperson told The Arizona Republic on Tuesday.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said there are several reasons why parents are waiting on their ESA money.

One of the top issues is the fact that there’s been a tenfold increase in the number of students using the program since 2021, when it was more restricted.

“We only have twice as many staff to deal with 10 times as many,” Horne told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Arizona’s Morning News on Wednesday. “In other words, 21 staff to deal with 7,600. Now, it’s 82,000, more than 10 times as much, but we only have 40 staff.”

He says the Legislature needs to take action to make sure the Arizona Department of Education can hire more staff.

“Somebody working hard can process 200 of these a day,” Horne said. “We’re getting 500 a day coming in. It’s just utterly impossible.”

Others reasons why Arizona parents wait for ESA reimbursement

Unexpected red tape is another reason why some parents are waiting months to get their payouts.

For instance, a legislative change to the way ESAs are processed has thrown a wrench in the distribution process, he said.

Before the change, parents went through a third-party system called ClassWallet. However, a recent legal change to save the ClassWallet fee put a new workload on the education department’s shoulders.

“Somebody went to the Legislature last year and got them to pass a bill saying they could do it by reimbursement,” Horne said.

Now the burden falls on the education department to check the reimbursements. Given the staff size, that causes backlogs.

“We’ve asked the Legislature, in the future, ‘Please ask us before you pass something so we can tell you what the consequences will be,'” Horne said.

Attorney general raised concerns over ESA accountability

Another reason for the backlog is tied to Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, according to Horne.

Arizona’s top prosecutor has long been critical of the state’s universal school voucher program.

In August 2023, Mayes told KTAR News’ The Mike Broomhead Show she worried ESAs would enable fraud due to the program’s rapid growth and lack of controls.

Her intuition proved correct when three people who formerly worked for the Arizona Department of Education were accused of using ESA funds for personal use this February.

Mayes’ office then sent a letter to the education department in July demanding officials provide detailed records of ESA purchases.

“The attorney general required us to tie every request for materials to curriculum, even materials that are obviously educational, like books and pencils,” Horne said. “I’m supporting the Goldwater Institute, which is filing a lawsuit to stop that.”

In the meantime, though, Horne can’t defy Mayes’ orders.

“I could send money out to parents and the attorney general could claw it back,” Horne said. “In the meantime, that’s clogged up the system pretty badly.”