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) for private school vouchers.
In a letter to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC,) ESA Director Christine Accurso advised that ESA enrollment could reach 100,000 by the end of the 2023/24 school year costing the state $900 million.
ARIZONA— New estimates from @RealTomHorne say that the state’s school voucher-style program could see enrollment reach 100,000 students by next year, costing roughly $900 million. (That would put the state budget, as passed, in the red, per leg staff analysis.) pic.twitter.com/Kv8XZANA3f
— YvonneWingettSanchez 🏜 (@yvonnewingett) May 31, 2023
Currently, according to the latest report cited by AZ Central, there are about 58,000 students in the program with approximately 7,000 applications to process.
When ESA expansion was first passed, Republican legislators claimed that the program would cost no more than $30 million.
In the letter, Ms. Accurso, without hard data to support it, claims that most of the new ESA applicants were now coming from the public school system. Which public schools (charter or traditional) and what is the current ratio of students from private schools prior to enrollment to public school ones is not mentioned in the letter although Superintendent Tom Horne claimed (without providing any data) to AZ Central that 49 percent of the ESA enrollees come from public schools.
Horne and Accurso also claim that this new influx of ESA enrollees from public schools (again, do they come from charter, some of whom like Great Hearts are forming private schools to meet the need or traditional) will save the state money in the long run because the state funds the scholarships less than the average daily membership of a public school student.
AGAIN, neither Horne nor Accurso seems to have provided hard data to support their analysis. Efforts to reach Mr. Moran to find out the actual enrollment numbers from current private schools and public (charter and traditional) students were not successful at the time of writing.
Reaction to the Exploding ESA Estimates.
Reaction to the Accurso memo to Moran is predictable depending on what side of the political spectrum the person or organization is on.
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, who did not insist on a cap on ESA growth in the recent budget negotiations last month, posted on social media.
The school voucher program in its current form is not sustainable, and Republican legislators need to explain why they are forcing this runaway spending on Arizona taxpayers. We need to bring an end to this out of control and unaccountable spending, and I will work tirelessly to…
— Governor Katie Hobbs (@GovernorHobbs) May 31, 2023
Arizona State Representative and Teacher Caucus Member Judy Schwiebert posted:
$900 million a year for unaccountable school vouchers threatens to bankrupt Arizona. It is fiscally irresponsible to continue down this path. We must implement caps to protect our financial future. https://t.co/5lfJdtxLgh
— Representative Judy Schwiebert, LD2 (@JudyForAZ) May 31, 2023
Another Teacher Caucus Member, State Senator Christine Marsh, along with Senator Catherine Miranda issued a joint letter condemning the Horne ESA enabling ADE and fiscally irresponsible Republicans who passed the wealthy-friendly ESA expansion (one that they claimed would cost no more than $30 million) for this blow-up of the state coffers, posting:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: "Another Broken Promise" – Republican Universal Private School Voucher Expansion to Cost Arizona $900,000,000 in FY2024 pic.twitter.com/szpf6Vwngh
— Arizona Senate Democrats (@AZSenateDems) May 31, 2023
Please click on the highlighted words to read more reactions from the Democrats in the State Senate and House.
Marisol Garcia, the President of the Arizona Education Association released a statement, offering:
“A small group of politicians and their corporate allies have spent more than a decade systematically undermining public education. Now, the voucher program they created is on track to cost Arizona $900 million over the next 12 months. Are we seriously about to bankrupt our state by subsidizing private school tuition for the wealthy? Arizona is 49th in the nation for per-pupil public school funding, with thousands of educators leaving the state or the profession in search of higher pay and better benefits. But instead of funding the public schools attended by 90% of Arizona kids, we’re about to spend nearly a billion dollars helping the rich pay for private school. We can’t go on like this. The universal voucher program must be repealed.”
Beth Lewis, in a statement from Save Our Schools Arizona, stated:
“We are shocked but not surprised by this new budget demand from the ADE. Arizona simply does not have the funds to spend $900 million annually on taxpayer subsidies to the wealthy. Failure to limit the growth of the unaccountable, irresponsible ESA voucher program carries far-reaching and irreversible consequences for Arizona students and families; this failure will accelerate the dismantling of public education and bankrupt our state. The time to fight for public education is now. Not next year, and not in 2025. By all projections, by then it will be too late.
We call upon Governor Hobbs and legislative leadership to develop a real, sustainable plan to ensure responsible fiscal stewardship of taxpayer funds and to fulfill their Constitutional obligation to prioritize and fund Arizona’s public schools. Arizona must act now to reverse the tide of school privatization and fully invest in our neighborhood public schools, educators, and students.”
They also cited AZ Voucher Watch’s claim (to be fair without hard backup data) that Superintendent Horne’s staffers at ADE acknowledged that three out of four ESA applicants come from private schools.
"Horne's own staffers acknowledged that three out of every four of the students who have applied for the new universal vouchers to date already were going to private schools — and on their parents' dime. Now their tuition will be borne by taxpayers." #AZVoucherWatch https://t.co/du7NassIQZ
— Save Our Schools AZ (@arizona_sos) June 1, 2023
Rebecca Gau, the Executive Director of Stand for Children Arizona, relayed:
“This irresponsible letter from the Arizona Department of Education exemplifies the critical flaw of ESAs, where many of the recipients are wealthy families who already send their kids to private schools. This handout to the wealthy has already ballooned out of control and we urge legislators to significantly reform this program which currently has no limit to how much money can be spent, no academic standards, fiscal accountability or transparency. The ESA voucher program will continue to be ripe for corruption and abuse and will take more funds away from our local public schools. Tom Horne’s leadership at the Arizona Department of Education should be questioned, and addressing the ESA voucher program needs to be the first priority of the education committees next legislative session.”
In the article for AZ Central, House Speaker Ben Toma said he did not want to comment fully on the Accurso memo until the JBLC fully analyzed the numbers.
State Senator John Kavanagh in the same article said the legislature would consider a supplemental funding bill for the 35,000 new applicants if it becomes necessary.
Where is the money going to come from and if Horne is right, why should that money be necessary if this new enrollment surge should be offset by savings in the Average Daily Membership of public school children.
Moving Forward
A cap on ESA’s is definitely needed. The best way to do it would be to set a fixed number for enrollees and means test the applicants based on income where the poorest and those with special needs and circumstances can qualify and the richest and those with means can not. They have fleeced the state coffers enough through the ESA expansion and the other Republican plutocratic friendly tax cuts.
This matter, if possible, should also be referred to the people on a ballot initiative to decide how to move forward.
The Governor, if the Republicans want to pass a supplemental funding measure, should hold firm and demand an enrollment cap with proper guidelines.
Stay Tuned.
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Charter schools are privately operated schools receiving public funds. Their boards self-perpetuate and do not answer to voters.They are controlled by their owners. If they go out of business any property they have acquired are kept by their owners, and do not revert to the State or any adjoining public school district. Sir, we agree on most everything but facts are facts.
Hi Frances
The law regarding charter schools designates them as public schools. That is why they are not-for-profits and 501 C-3s. Now there are charter operators (not me) who have created private dummy corps but those are not universally the case for all schools.
Charter Schools like the one I owned may not have answered directly to the voters but they did have to comply with state auditing guidelines, the State Board of Ed, later the Charter Board, and the community. We were also accredited like most other public schools. While some charter holders (not me) may have kept properties for themselves, those instances are few and far between. Please do not paint all charters with the same broad brush. Take care.
Put it on the ballot and roll it back to zero. Before the BASIS owners start another private school, to buy a bigger mansion in PV. No amount of jasmine will cover this stink.
Hi Frances
Charter Schools are not private schools. They are actually the public schools that stand to lose the most because their students are more likely to bolt than those in traditional public schools because they have already made the first jump. That is why Great Hearts has started a separate private school program to compliment their public charter schools.