Last October, the Blog for Arizona and other news outlets, especially ABC 15 News, reported on some of the questionable expenses of Empowerment Scholarship Account (E.S.A.) recipients (70,000 as of now with $665 million spent according to the JBLC) that met the approval of the Department of Education. Among these approved expenses were: Last week, … Read more
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs’s office released a July 21, 2023 study confirming that if the Arizona Department of Education’s (A.D.E.) questionable May 2023 enrollment projections for voucher scholarship accounts are accurate and the Fiscal Year 2024 State Budget may face a close to $320 million shortfall. This happened only hours before: What does the July … Read more
Talk about a potential scam. Or blatant stupidity. The Empowerment Scholarship Account (E.S.A.) Division at the Arizona Department of Education has indicated, through a response on their call center on social media, that taking children to a waterpark could count as a valid expense for physical education activities/coursework. Education advocates and Legislative oversight leaders should … Read more
Over the last couple of weeks, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne is giving a lack of transparency and Mccathyite tactics new meaning at the Arizona Department of Education (ADE.) First, he and his Director of the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA,) Christine Accurso sent an approximately one-page memo to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC) … Read more
Get ready for Alt-Fuel Fiasco 2.0. That reference (already made by legislators like Arizona Democratic Senate Leader Mitzi Epstein and former Democratic House Leader Andres Cano) to the turn-of-the-century alternate fuel state tax credit program that blew up Arizona’s revenue coffers may be repeated again with the predictable funding explosion of Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (E.S.A) … Read more