Grand Canyon Times

The Department of Education has witnessed a surge in expense requests for non-educational purposes through the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program. The State Board has maintained its stance on rejecting these requests.

According to the Arizona Department of Education, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne stated, "In recent months much has been made of supposedly extravagant ESA expense approvals. But our policy of reviewing all requests is far different from that of my predecessor who did allow a number of inappropriate expenses to be approved and which ESA opponents continue to falsely claim as alleged abuses today. The department and State Board have again shown this week that we take these expense approvals seriously and will not tolerate attempts to go beyond what the law permits. We allow only what public schools provide at reasonable cost."

The Arizona Department of Education further elaborated on the variety of requests made through the ESA program, which include items not necessarily related to education such as car seats, commercial freeze dryers, and dune buggies. Horne pledged to scrutinize every request submitted meticulously. In recent months, 12,200 requests were rejected because they were deemed irrelevant to educational purposes.

According to 12News, parents expressed their dissatisfaction with the current administration. They had hoped for more efficiency from the new administration but claim that this expectation has not been met. Complaints ranged from prolonged wait times for reimbursements to issues with allowing debit cards to access ESA funds. One challenge facing the board is a shortage of available employees to assist with reviewing the expense requests.

KTAR News reported that Horne's office initiated measures denying parents' use of debit cards for purchasing non-educational related items through the ESA program. While there are other funding methods available for these families, misuse of the debit card could lead to its cancellation. A recent letter from Horne's office revealed that over one week, 750 cards were cancelled due to invalid purchases out of 47,000 cards in circulation.