It is amazing what an audit can uncover.
In another bombshell report by 12 News journalist Craig Harris, the billion-dollar-a-year Arizona Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) private school voucher welfare/scam for the wealthy and huckster class program, has been found by the Auditor General to have major issues of non-compliance in how management at the Arizona Department of Education administers the system.
Surprise Surprise.
According to Harris, among the findings in the report are:
- 34 percent purchase error rate.
- A lack of standard financial management procedures and proper accounting technologies.
- In apparent clear conflicts of interest, ESA Program Director John Ward personally benefited from the system he is charged with overseeing and granting special favors to others
- One ESA employee approving the purchase of “sexually explicit books” to a person that worker had a relationship with.
- Failure to use the Class Wallet fraud detection system.
- Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne using $10 million in ESA funds to market the program instead of hiring staff to manage it.
Please click here to read the full Audit Report starting on page 20.
House Democratic Assistant Leader Nancy Guiterrez told Harris that Ward should be investigated.
She went further in a social media post, saying:
“Did you know that your taxpayer dollars are being used to buy diamond rings? Like this one? My husband bought me this one, but the state of Arizona bought theirs. That’s no joke. Under the ESA voucher scam, money meant to educate kids was actually used for luxury items.
One ESA voucher parent used taxpayer funds to buy diamond rings like the program was their personal Tiffany’s account. Meanwhile, public schools can’t even afford updated textbooks. Under the ESA voucher program, it’s open season on your taxpayer dollars.
End the waste. End the fraud. End the abuse.
Stop the ESA Voucher Scam.“
Dr. Teresa Leyba Ruiz, Democratic Candidate to replace Horne as Superintendent of Public Instruction, immediately issued a press release, pouncing on Horne and the Arizona Department of Education for mismanaging the ESA program, writing:
“Arizona families deserve a Department of Education that treats everyone fairly, and the ESA program should never be treated like a personal piggy bank for people with political connections. Public dollars demand public accountability.”
“As someone who has led an institution larger than the Arizona Department of Education, I understand how to manage complex systems responsibly. This work is about ensuring fairness and being a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars for this billion-dollar program.”
“We can support families, protect taxpayers, and ensure fairness at the same time, but it requires disciplined leadership and a willingness to enforce the rules.”
In the press release, Dr. Ruiz proposed several measures to reform the ESA system including:
- Establishing a formal, public conflict-of-interest policy and training for staff.
- Implementing consistent review standards for all transactions using automated front-end safeguards.
- Improving transparency in education spending and publishing ESA data to the state Transparency Portal.
- Creating a dedicated compliance program to prevent improper spending.
Beth Lewis, the Executive Director of Save our Schools Arizona provided the below statement to the Blog:
“Superintendent Horne has been falsely claiming ‘risk-based auditing’ for the state’s runaway $1 billion private school voucher program for years — but this report clearly shows his office has utterly failed to crack down on the rampant fraud, waste, and abuse that ESA vouchers have become known for. And the Republican-run legislature is complicit, failing to require audits and failing to institute guardrails to preserve our tax dollars.”
At a time when financially strapped traditional and charter public schools are under required auditing guidelines as a condition for them to remain open and independent, Republicans in the Arizona State Legislature need to stop giving this group of plutocrats and fraudsters a blank/no strings attached check with working and middle-class taxpayer money.
It is time for these MAGA legislators to think about the 98 percent and not the wealthiest two percent at the top.
Or voters should find legislators in the November elections that will.
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