Overview
- Arizona’s Auditor General released the report Wednesday, finding issues in 25 of 63 Empowerment Scholarship Account purchases worth $86,599 in a program that lets families use state funds for private or home schooling.
- Auditors tied many gaps to a policy that auto-approves purchases under $2,000, identifying 2.3 million such orders totaling $654 million between December 17, 2024 and January 31, 2026.
- The sample showed missing documentation, signs of possible misuse, and unallowable items, including tuition sent to a PayPal account in the holder’s name and purchases like food and home security cameras.
- The report urged a two-year re-review of all flagged and auto-approved transactions and said the agency likely violated a 2024 law by not consulting auditors when setting risk-based checks.
- Superintendent Tom Horne and ESA director John Ward rejected the scale of the problem, citing an estimated 2% error rate, tight staffing funded at about 0.4% of program dollars, and plans to add technology as lawmakers from both parties called for stronger oversight.