by Matthew Holloway | Jun 19, 2024 | Education, News
By Matthew Holloway |
The State of Arizona has passed a balanced budget through the Republican controlled House and Senate not only hammering down a $1.4 billion shortfall in projected tax revenues but actually expanding and reforming the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA), and School Tuition Organization (STO) eligibility, much to Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs’ chagrin. Hobbs, despite her opposition toward the ESA program, implied her acceptance of the budget in a Saturday post to X, and on Monday evening signed the budget into law.
As reported by 12News, the budget was approved in a marathon of votes that stretched throughout the Saturday workday and landed on Hobbs’ desk where it was approved at the end of the business day. Many agencies in Arizona are now working with a budget cut of approximately 3% that arose primarily from depressed sales tax collections in 2023-24. Hobbs and her fellow Democrats have tried to assign the blame to former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey for tax cuts and expansion of the ESA program to allow all students access to the education of their choice.
In spite of this rhetoric, the GOP led legislature successfully prevented a reduction in the funds directed to putting students in underperforming schools into private schools and under the tutelage of homeschooling parents. The budget even included a 2% inflation-driven increase in the K-12 public schools budget.
Senate Majority Whip Sine Kerr explained in a statement from the AZ Senate Republicans:
“What’s not included in the $16.1 billion budget is an elimination of the historic Universal Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program or our School Tuition Organizations program providing tens of thousands of Arizona families the freedom to pick the best schools to meet their children’s unique learning needs.
We are continuing our commitment to providing every family in the state of Arizona with a quality education, no matter their zip code or economic status. Additionally, we said ‘no’ when Governor Hobbs and Democrats proposed eliminating our Arizona Freedom Schools at our public universities, which are dedicated to civics education and ensuring students are equipped down the road to lead our state to a brighter tomorrow.”
In the new budget, the ESA program sees an expansion to “allow the use of account monies to reimburse the parent of a qualified student or a qualified student for the purchase of a good or educational service that is an allowable expense.” Reforms to the ESA will be extensive with the Arizona Department of Education to work in consultation with the Auditor General to generate risk-based audits of the program and ensuring that educators being paid through the program are not subject to disciplinary action by the State Board of Education and requiring all teaching staff and personnel with unsupervised contact with the students be fingerprinted as public school teachers already are. Expansion to the STO program grew the student eligibility to include any students who “are placed in foster care … at any time before the student graduates from high school or obtains a general equivalency diploma.”
In her comments posted to X, Hobbs commented, “While this bipartisan budget delivers reforms to ESAs, they are not enough.” She added a commitment to bring “accountability and transparency” to the program referring to it as “unsustainable.”
In addition to the preservation and expansion of Arizona’s ESA and STO programs, the AZ Senate GOP offered the following highlights from the budget:
- Reduces state spending by $1.7 billion below the 2023-2024 enacted budget (a 10% reduction).
- Reduces ongoing spending by $330 million.
- Protects school choice programs—both Empowerment Scholarship Accounts and School Tuition Organizations are funded for continued growth.
- Protects Arizona Freedom Schools.
- Does not pull dollars from the rainy-day fund.
- No new taxes or tax increases.
- No new debt.
- Reduces ongoing funding of state agencies by 3.5%, including cuts to universities by $23 million.
- Maintains law enforcement funding, while adding $5 million for local border security support and $4 million for fentanyl interdiction and law enforcement response.
- Prohibits board fee increases for 2 years.
- Lowers vehicle emissions testing fees by 5%.
- Ends ongoing funding for COVID federal programs.
- Maintains road infrastructure funding.
- Adds additional full-time employees to reduce concealed carry permit application and renewal time frames.
- Makes conservative policy and spending reforms to the Arizona Commerce Authority, the Arizona Department of Transportation, the Industrial Commission of Arizona, and the Board of Technical Registration.
Senate President Warren Petersen summarized the contentious budget in statement, “Following last year’s state budget, where Republican lawmakers provided inflationary relief to everyday Arizonans through $274 million in tax rebates distributed to struggling families, as well as a ban on the tenant-paid rental tax taking effect this January, Republicans are again successfully supporting our hardworking citizens while simultaneously reining in spending.” He added, “In this year’s budget, we defended more than $520 million allocated last year for much-needed transportation projects statewide. We also cut fees for Maricopa County drivers on emissions testing by 5%, and we banned fee increases on Arizonans from state boards for the next two years.”
“Arizonans can rest assured that their state has a balanced budget. I’m thankful for members of the legislature who came together, compromised, and passed this bipartisan agreement,” Gov. Katie Hobbs said in a statement reported by AZ Mirror. “But I know we still have more work to do.”
Despite the modest gains of the budget, not all Republicans supported the compromise. The Arizona Freedom Caucus seemed very displeased and took their case to the public in a post to X, writing, “It’s a perfect example of the Swamp that establishment Republicans at the Arizona Capital are saying ‘the Freedom Caucus is the problem’ on this budget The reality is that this is what happens when weak Republicans negotiate a budget in secret with Democrats.”
The Caucus cited a dozen shortcomings in the budget, namely that the Democrat and Republicans who formulated it, “Fail to appropriate any new meaningful border security money for local Sheriffs, kneecap a school choice tax credit, regulate private faith-based schools, weaponize public schools’ ability to stop conservative teachers from providing instruction to ESA students, impede parents’ right to educate their children as they see fit, gift hundreds of millions of your tax dollars to the healthcare industrial complex, refuse to do anything meaningful to fix our elections, use budget gimmicks to pretend to solve the state’s deficit, rather than actually solving it, sweep $430M of water funding intended to help solve our state’s water crisis, fail to hold Hobbs accountable for her illegal pay-to-play scheme, fail to hold Mayes accountable for weaponizing the justice system against her political opponents,” and “fail to hold Fontes accountable for his totally illegal Election Procedures Manual.”
They added, “In the case of the current budget, when @AZFreedomCaucus members approached leadership, raised concerns with some of the nonstarters in the budget, offered solutions, and indicated that with changes we could achieve Republican unity… Warren Petersen and Ben Toma rejected the changes instantly without even considering them, and then spent the rest of the day attacking, defaming, and insulting the members of the Freedom Caucus for not just blindly following orders. Unfortunately, establishment Republicans’ failure to see the present battlefield for what it really is will cost us the legislature. When Democrats take control, whether it’s in November or in two years… you can look back at who voted YES on this year’s budget to figure out who to blame.”
The budget is also likely to draw a legal challenge from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes regarding the ‘sweep’ of funding from the $1.14 billion, 18-year opioid One Arizona Agreement. The agreement, long a bone of contention between the AG, Governor, and Legislature, stems from a lawsuit that capped the Big Pharma opioid scandal and resulted in then-Attorney General Mark Brnovich signing onto to a $26 billion national settlement with Cardinal, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen and Johnson & Johnson, which distributed, manufactured and marketed opioids respectively.
The funds are held by the AG’s Office as steward for the money designated for opioid treatment, prevention, and education. Mayes told 12 News’ Brahm Resnick, “I am not giving that money to them. It’s in my bank account at the Attorney General’s Office. It’s not going anywhere.”
In a lengthy statement posted to X, Mayes said, “I have stated publicly + very clearly that I refuse to release these funds in this way as it would violate the agreement, & I stand by those words today. This is an egregious grab, and I will do everything in my power to protect these opioid settlement funds for all Arizonans.”
Matthew Holloway is a senior reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
by Daniel Stefanski | Jun 18, 2024 | Education, News
By Daniel Stefanski |
For the second year in a row, Republicans protected the state’s historic school choice program from Democrats seeking to regulate or end it.
This past weekend, the Arizona legislature passed the 2024-2025 state budget, adjourning for the session.
House Speaker Ben Toma, who was instrumental in the negotiations and approval of the budget, addressed his caucus’ defense of the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, writing, “I’m most proud of the fact that this budget fully protects the state’s universal Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program which provides educational freedom for Arizona families. Democrats have long vowed to dismantle the program. As the sponsor of the universal expansion of ESAs, I was never going to let that happen. Eligibility for the program is unchanged and we have included several smart, commonsense reforms that improve this popular school choice program and increases accountability.”
“What’s not included in the $16.1 billion budget is an elimination of the historic Universal Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program or our School Tuition Organizations program providing tens of thousands of Arizona families the freedom to pick the best schools to meet their children’s unique learning needs,” said Majority Whip Sine Kerr. “We are continuing our commitment to providing every family in the state of Arizona with a quality education, no matter their zip code or economic status. Additionally, we said ‘no’ when Governor Hobbs and Democrats proposed eliminating our Arizona Freedom Schools at our public universities, which are dedicated to civics education and ensuring students are equipped down the road to lead our state to a brighter tomorrow.”
Christine Accurso, one of Arizona’s foremost advocates for the ESA program, shared an update on the state of the program in the aftermath of the legislature’s action with the budget. She said, “For the second year in a row, Governor Hobbs failed to live up to her campaign promise of gutting the Empowerment Scholarship Program. ESA students will see the full funding in the program in 2024-2025 school year… The legislature prioritized parents and students over bureaucratic vendors… “
Accurso’s comment about Hobbs harkened back to the passage of the 2023-2024 budget process, where the then-first-year governor disappointed Democrat legislators and allied interest groups with her failure to break through a Republican blockade of the ESA program on behalf of Arizona families. Hobbs spent the remainder of 2023 and a good portion of the first half of 2024 taking more overt political swipes at ESAs in, what appeared to be, an attempt to win back favor from her base.
Hobbs may have sensed a renewed crescendo of disappointment and outrage from her side after the budget was passed by the legislature. In her statement about the agreement, Hobbs said, “…I know we still have more work to do. While this bipartisan budget delivers reforms to ESAs, there are not enough. I stand committed to bringing much needed accountability and transparency to the unsustainable ESA program.”
Marisol Garcia, the President of the Arizona Education Association, issued a statement following the latest budget passage, in which she previewed the road ahead for her side as they regroup and try to win Democrat seats for a legislative majority come January. Garcia wrote, “…There’s only so much that pro-education lawmakers can do when they’re outnumbered by an extremist majority. This budget is a call to action – it’s up to us to elect a new legislature this November and start making Arizona a state that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few.”
Save Our Schools Arizona also released a statement to oppose the budget and echoed the sentiments of the Arizona Education Association, stating, “Failing to touch Gov. Ducey’s unaccountable ESA voucher giveaway is an incredibly irresponsible use of taxpayer funds… This budget makes the path forward abundantly clear: No progress can be made for Arizona public schools until the balance of power is shifted at the legislature.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | May 26, 2024 | Education, News
By Staff Reporter |
The state spends billions more on wealthy students who attend public schools than through the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA), or universal school choice program, according to a new analysis of federal census data from the Goldwater Institute.
The study released earlier this month culminated data from the last five U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Surveys ranging from last year to this year assessing school enrollment types for K-12 children across various household incomes.
The Goldwater Institute found that together, the data revealed that nearly one-third of public school students came from households earning over $100,000, of which about half came from households earning over $150,000.
The study disclosed that the Census data, though aggregated, was limited as general approximations due to coming from sample sizes.
Over 80 percent of children from higher-income households enroll at taxpayer expense in Arizona public schools, at a much higher rate than the ESA funds. About 1.1 million students in all attend public schooling.
Goldwater estimated that the higher rate amounts to anywhere from $2 to $4 billion annually for children from households earning over $100,000, and anywhere from $1 to $2 billion for children from households earning over $150,000.
“[W]hen it comes to funding higher-income students in the public school, the state is being charged specifically for those students, whose collective presence in the public school system does add significant cost to the public school system: both variable and fixed costs, including the necessity to hire additional staff or construct or renovate for larger campuses,” read the report.
The minimum formula funding for one public school student is about $7,500 annually for a baseline. That number rises to $12,200 with the inclusion of other funds like district overrides, bonds, and school facilities funding. The minimum tops out at over $14,700 with the inclusion of federal funding.
By comparison, Goldwater reported that average ESA funds amount to about $7,400. These students also lose out on several sources of fixed and variable costs, such as the Classroom Site Fund, and those funds revert back to the public school system.
Overall, the institute estimated that it costs taxpayers 10 to 20 times more to educate students of wealthy families in public schools than it does for similarly-situated families in the ESA Program.
The Goldwater Institute issued the study on the heels of Governor Katie Hobbs’ January announcement of a budget plan to revoke ESA Program scholarships from nearly 50,000 students.
Aggregated data collected by Goldwater in the course of their research further suggested that about 20 percent of private schoolers came from households with an income under $50,000, while about 50 percent came from households with an income under $100,000.
As for homeschoolers, the institute found that nearly 60 percent of those students hailed from households with income levels under $100,000.
In addition to state and Census Bureau data, the report relied on research from the National Center for Education Statistics, Reason, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Staff Reporter | Mar 29, 2024 | Education, News
By Staff Reporter |
Arizona Republican lawmakers and concerned parents won a recent victory to protect the state’s universal school choice program from a volley of new regulations.
Over this past weekend, Arizona legislators were involved in a battle over the Draft Parent Handbook for the ESA Program for School Year 2024-2025. Unbeknownst to many ESA families, the handbook was posted to the Arizona State Board of Education’s website – linked to an agenda item – with multiple proposed changes of a significant nature, giving interested parties mere days to leave feedback. The recommendation from the Department was for the State Board of Education to adopt the revised handbook when it convened on Monday, March 25.
A group of parent-stakeholders, led by a long-time watchdog of the ESA program, Christine Accurso, discovered the existence of the handbook and poured through its contents, finding numerous examples of added regulations for students and families. They compiled the list and notified as many other parents as possible.
The parents also reached out to Republican lawmakers, who were shocked to learn about the lack of transparency and the efforts to overregulate the program, which was contrary to the legislative intent. Senators Jake Hoffman and Wendy Rogers, among others, immediately sprang into action to stop the revised handbook from becoming Department policy.
Thanks to the legislators’ and parents’ involvement, the State Board of Education ultimately reversed course on its initial recommendation, voting to maintain the previous year’s handbook with no changes.
Save Our Schools Arizona Director Beth Lewis, who has been a staunch opponent of the ESA program, was extremely disappointed with the outcome from the State Board of Education. After the Board’s vote, she said, “The proposed regulations rejected by Supt. Horne and Republican lawmakers would have provided a thin veneer of oversight for Arizona taxpayers.”
One of the ESA parents, Kelly Kenney, told AZ Free News, “I was shocked about the increased regulations because the new handbook changes will limit the educational opportunities for my child. This would directly impact her access to the type of resources that she absolutely needs. If the ESA program was supposed to be regulated in this way, it would spell it out in the statutes. I’m very glad the State Board saw things our way and sided with the parents in this program.”
The Arizona Department of Education’s “X” account issued a short statement following the vote from the State Board, writing, “Superintendent Horne is thankful for Senate President Warren Petersen and Arizona Senate Republicans for helping garner support from the state board of education to allow more time for input from parents on the ESA handbook.”
In the days leading up to the State Board of Education meeting, Republican legislators had several conversations with individuals at the Arizona Department of Education, informing them of their displeasure with this action and holding them accountable to the original intent of the ESA law. To ensure that ADE understood the seriousness of the situation and the resolve of legislative Republicans, Senator Jake Hoffman wrote a letter to the State Board, which was signed by many of his colleagues, including Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Ben Toma.
The letter stated that ADE’s “proposed changes restrict[ed] the program further than the Arizona State Legislature intended.” It also highlighted “the failure to allow for public engagement, comment, or input in the shaping of these new regulations,” calling this “incredibly concerning.” Two requests were made of the State Board of Education in this communication. The first was to reject the draft handbook and greenlight the 2023-2024 handbook for another school year. The second was to “form a stakeholder working group consisting primarily of ESA parents, private school administrators, and home schooling parents” for the 2025-2026 handbook.
In an exclusive comment to AZ Free News, Senator Hoffman explained why he took the lead against the proposed changes in the draft ESA handbook. He said, “Transparency and robust public input from those most impacted by these regulations are critically important. Unfortunately, the system failed the Arizona families who rely on empowerment scholarship accounts for the educational success for their children. Thankfully Superintendent Horne and the State Board of Education took the opportunity to remedy this failure. Their decision to reject the deeply flawed 2024-2025 handbook, and instead adopt the current handbook until ESA families and educational providers have a multi-month opportunity to engage with ADE staff on the next handbook was the right move for the children relying on this incredible program.”
Just before the legislators’ letter was delivered to the State Board of Education on Friday evening, the ESA Executive Director wrote an email of his own to ESA families with the “ESA Program Response to Misinformation.” The director stated that “incorrect information has made it into the public dialog regarding payment of ESA purchases…that ESA account holders will not be paid for their allowable purchases until after they have completed an educational program.” The director also noted that the draft handbook had been posted on the State Board of Education’s website since Friday, March 15. Sources told AZ Free News that the alleged complaint was one that they had not seen lodged against the draft handbook and that none of the other concerns brought by parents about proposed changes in ESA policy or guidance were addressed in the director’s email.
The director’s email to ESA families on Friday, March 22, was believed to be the first since January 24, when the program sent an “important update on new features from ClassWallet.” The director had previously sent three consecutive emails to families in late-December 2023. In one of those emails, the director asked parents to submit their “suggestions for specific changes…to [be] made to the ESA Parent Handbook.” The deadline for submissions was January 2, 2024 – four days after that email hit inboxes.
Another ESA parent, Rosemary McAtee, gave the following comment to AZ Free News: “I was appalled to learn how the education department was trying to slide a new handbook past the parents, to the state board, without any input from the parents. I am glad that members of the board voted to include us in the process by allowing more time for our input. This week was a win for ESA parents! I’ve been in this program for 5 years and every year there has been a public process. We really haven’t heard anything at all from the department in the past 7 months when we were accustomed to weekly email updates.”
Solicitation of public comment on changes for the 2024-2025 Draft ESA Handbook was handled much differently – and with less transparency – than the previous year’s redlines. Last year, ADE issued a press release and transmitted an email to ESA account holders to explain the proposed changes.
The uproar over the draft handbook follows another instance where a Republican legislator was forced to intervene in an issue raised by parents. In February, ESA parents asked Rogers to resolve the backlog of orders in the program, which was believed to be around 85,000 (or over four months old), according to sources. AZ Free News was made aware of at least one Arizona private school that experienced severe funding issues due to the lack of reimbursements for ESA students who attended.
After Rogers contacted ADE with her concerns and request to pick up the pace of reimbursements, the issue almost literally evaporated overnight. AZ Free News was told that thousands of orders may have been approved in mere hours – and many more followed in the following days.
In an interview with AZ Free News, Rogers explained why she chose to involve herself over the stockpile of orders from ESA families, saying, “Numerous constituents, including family members had become exceedingly frustrated at the slow turnaround time for reimbursements from the ESA program. People from all over the state wrote me. They know that I fight, and that I’m outspoken. So I began writing terse letters to the Arizona Department of Education and I got results for my people on an individual basis, one by one. Then the word got around among the ESA families and everyone began to write me. So I started inundating the department with these letters, every one of which was carefully and separately written in-depth describing how these reimbursement delays adversely impacted their ability to school their children.”
The rural Arizona state Senator added, “Then all of the sudden, I heard that thousands of ESA reimbursement approvals were done over one night with no scrutiny. This is not a way to run a business. This just feeds the controversy on whether or not expenditure approvals are correct or valid. The ESA program was running well last year. I heard from many families how well run it was. Now it has run amok. There is no excuse for it. It must be repaired. Our children are too important. The legislature put this ESA program in place and now it’s up to administrators to manage it properly.”
The former director of the ESA Program, Christine Accurso, was at the center of both episodes, continuing to be a sounding board for hundreds of parents and an effective liaison to the Republican-led legislature on behalf of stakeholders. After the positive action from the Board on Monday morning, Accurso wrote, “Superintendent Horne committed to having his team work with key stakeholders – mainly parents – in creating the next one. Many Republican lawmakers stepped up to help their constituents, after receiving hundreds of emails this past week, and their advocacy paid off. As an advocate, defender and watchdog of this program for the past 10 years, I am so glad to see this outcome. This is exactly what we wanted and needed to have happen. The parents who attended and spoke at the board meeting did a great job advocating for their children’s education.”
When Accurso inherited the ESA Program in January 2023, there were over 60,000 orders for marketplace, direct pay, and reimbursements. Even with a steady increase of new enrollees adding a significant amount of orders to the existing backlog, Accurso and her team managed to whittle the requests down to essentially ‘zero,’ and drastically minimize the delay in response time to parents.
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
by Carlos Martinez | Mar 19, 2024 | Opinion
By Carlos Martinez |
Whether born in Arizona or immigrants, Hispanics play a critical role in enriching our state. We not only strive for the American dream, but we take pride in the contributions we make to Arizona and the rest of the nation. That’s especially true when it comes to our businesses and our families.
But too often, Hispanic business owners—like so many others—find themselves frustrated with regulations and red tape. And on top of that, we now have a governor in our state who is actively trying to remove educational opportunities for our children. That’s why I was excited to find the Hispanic Liberty Alliance (HLA)—an organization right here in Arizona that is dedicated to empowering the Hispanic community and fostering a sense of knowledge, freedom, and unity.
Since September 2023, HLA has been engaging with business owners, local leaders, and families throughout our state. And their promotion of educational opportunities has especially resonated with parents. Take for example, the existence of Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA), which are available to K-12 students in Arizona. This pivotal program supports a child’s education by covering expenses such as school tuition, unforms, books, therapies, transportation, computers, and more. But unfortunately, many Hispanic families are unaware that this program is available for their children. And even worse, now Governor Hobbs is trying to dismantle it.
Thankfully, organizations like HLA are working to inform Hispanic families about ESAs, so they can make the best decisions for their children’s academic path. Furthermore, this group encourages civic participation by offering insights into how the government works and highlighting the importance of everyone’s vote. They recognize that an informed and engaged community is a powerful one. They certainly helped me realize the significance of contributing to my community in addition to teaching me about resources and information related to governmental processes. This is so important, especially considering that many of us in the Hispanic community are unaware of the services that our elected officials provide.
For Hispanic families that are looking for better educational opportunities for their children and for Hispanic business owners who are tired of regulations and red tape, I suggest that you engage with groups like Hispanic Liberty Alliance. This organization brilliantly addresses concerns and fosters dialogue, and its advocacy for the Hispanic business community ensures our voices are heard. At a time when government overreach continues to rise, it’s refreshing to know that groups like HLA are telling our elected leaders that the Hispanic community values family and freedom first.
Carlos Martinez is a proud immigrant who has been married for 27 years with three children. He owns a construction business, has a podcast that discusses current issues using a biblical angle, and is co-pastor of a Christian church in Phoenix.
