Governor Katie Hobbs wants accountability for ESA program
Governor Katie Hobbs called for accountability and transparency for Arizona’s ESA program in her State of the State address on January 8, 2024.
The Arizona Department of Education on Monday rejected an appeal by a parent who wanted to use state school voucher money to purchase three beach buggies.
The mother applied for reimbursement for the cost of the recreational vehicles through the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, citing her children’s need for interactive learning. As of 2022, any child in Arizona can receive public funds through the school voucher program to pay for educational expenses such as tuition, school supplies, tutoring, and supplemental materials for private schools.
The panel’s nearly unanimous decision contradicted an appeals officer’s recommendation in the spring that the family be refunded the money. Several panel members said the purchases were unnecessarily extravagant, even given the broad provisions of the ESA voucher program.
Board member Jennifer Clark, who cast the lone dissenting vote, said the board has voted in line with the hearing officer’s recommendation in every voucher appeal since she joined in 2022. She said the board should defer to the hearing officer’s recommendation.
The family can appeal the panel’s decision, said panel president Daniel Corr.
“Regardless of your feelings about ESA – and I think they range across a broad spectrum – at some point the question of appropriateness comes up,” Corr said. “And this particular purchase, these purchases, exceed my definition of appropriateness.”
The Arizona Department of Education initially denied the mother’s refund request in December. According to board meeting agenda documents, the mother appealed, and in January the department “erroneously” approved her refund request.
In March, the authority froze the family’s school voucher accounts and demanded repayment of the cost of the dune buggies. The mother again appealed to the Education Committee, describing the authority’s handling of her case as “grossly incompetent”.
“Telling us months later that we have to pay back something that was approved by the Department must be illegal in 50 states and some territories,” she wrote in the appeal.
The department testified during the May hearing that the dune buggies “are not primary educational items, are not authorized in the ESA Parent Handbook, and are not items funded in a public school setting,” according to board agenda documents. According to the department, textbooks and supplemental materials like dune buggies must be tied to a curriculum in order for a purchase to be justified under the voucher program.
This interpretation was confirmed by the Attorney General’s Office in a letter dated July 1, which accused the Ministry of having approved expenditure that was not covered by the curriculum and instructed the Ministry to no longer authorise such expenditure.
The parent later presented a curriculum that was “tightly tailored” with the help of an occupational therapist, according to agenda documents. The therapist testified during the hearing that students worked more effectively with learning materials that required physical interaction, such as dune buggies, which allowed them to “get exercise before returning to more traditional learning environments.”
Board member Scott Hagerman suggested there may be less costly ways to address the same problem. Hagerman’s argument led board member Jason Catanese to vote against the parent company, although he said he was still torn on the issue.
“I don’t know if this is necessarily within our jurisdiction, and that’s why it’s so hard for me to waver back and forth,” Catanese said. “It’s a difficult decision.”
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