Ego Bruised Tom Horne Annoyed with Kris Mayes Taking Credit for Calling Out, Prosecuting, and Convicting His ESA Team’s Mistakes

Poor Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne.

If he comes down too hard on plutocratic and home school conservative reactionary zealots for their repeated instances of waste, fraud, abuse, and downright theft of working and middle class taxpayer dollars that fund the billion dollar Welfare for the Wealthy Empowerment Scholarship Program (ESA) Private School Voucher Scam, the MAGA hard right led by Jake “Troll Farm” Hoffman and his handpicked choice for Superintendent of Public Instruction Kimberly Yee will rail on him for being too mean to their loyal, yet nefarious, base.

However, if he allows practices that permits these same plutocratic and home school conservative reactionary zealots to take advantage of the system and fleece hardworking working and middle class taxpayer money for fraudulent ends, then he looks like a willing bystander at least. A potential obliging accessory at worst.

This was the situation on August 27, 2025 when Mr. Horne, reacting to the conviction of two fraudsters who were able to create 43 phantom students to steal thousands of working and middle class taxpayer money in the amount of just over $110,000 released a very defensive statement accusing Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes of distorting his record and taking credit for his teams efforts on addressing abuses of the Empowerment Scholarship Account and blaming Governor Katie Hobbs for not allowing staffing increases to meet the demand of processing ESA reimbursement requests.

“In a recent television interview, state Attorney General Chris Mayes outrageously and mindlessly accused me of permitting improper purchases such as lingerie and diamonds.  If she paid attention to her job or even to the news, she would know that this was a false charge.

To date we have collected or referred for collection more than $622,000 in improper purchases under the program where purchases for under $2,000 are paid but not approved immediately, subject to later audit. That method, called risk-based auditing, is a common practice in many federal and state agencies and is dictated by state law.  Without this program, reimbursements for expenditures would take over two months, putting a terrible burden on parents who have paid money and are entitled to reimbursements. 

We have also won 16 appeals of improper expenses such as dune buggies, golf simulators and other unallowable items. In all those cases, the department has not received any support from the Attorney General’s office to ensure anyone who tried to defraud the system is held accountable. That appeals work is being done entirely by the Department of Education, and we have won them all.

The Department of Education has the same number of people authorized to review purchases as it had when it had one-tenth as man participants in the ESA program. The 12 people assigned to this task work very hard and courageously and can process 500 per day even though they get 1000 requests every day. Without this program, reimbursements for expenditures would take over two months, putting a terrible burden on parents who have paid money and are entitled to reimbursements. 

In the most recent legislative session, the House of Representatives budget had an item for more people in the Department of Education doing this work, but Governor Katie Hobbs told them that if they did not remove it, she would veto the budget. As a result, they felt they had to remove it, because at that stage an unapproved budget would have resulted in a government shutdown. 

I am committed to doing everything possible to protect taxpayer resources and root out fraud and abuse.”

That the Superintendent and his team did not have the professional and good sense to proof read their statement at least for the misspelling of the Attorney General’s name is a sad commentary and perfect analogy of their lack of attention to detail in managing the ESA system.

Mr. Horne’s defensive reaction is based on the Attorney General giving an interviews to 12 News Craig Harris and Sunday Square Off’s Brahm Resnik, outlining the numerous revelations of improper reimbursements under $2,000 allowed in the current ESA system, including those for diamond necklaces and lingerie.

It is also based on Ms. Mayes taking a victory lap over the conviction of the two fraudsters who created the phantom students where she offered in a press release:

“Fraud in the ESA program will not be tolerated. Those who exploit government systems for personal gain will be held accountable. My office will continue to aggressively prosecute fraud and protect taxpayer dollars.”

Responding to Mr. Horne’s statement, Mayes spokesperson Richie Taylor commented to Blog for Arizona:

“Instead of worrying about who gets credit for prosecuting ESA program fraud, Tom Horne should focus his efforts on preventing fraud before it happens. Attorney General Mayes will continue to aggressively prosecute fraud and protect taxpayer dollars.”

Governor Hobbs’s office did not respond to three requests for comment from Blog of Arizona on Superintendent Horne’s assertion that the Governor threatened to veto the budget if it contained a provision providing for the hiring of additional staff to the ESA division.