An audit of Arzona’s taxpayer-funded voucher program found even more problems with spending and oversight. Jason Barry reports for AZFamily.
Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne is defending the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program after a report by the auditor general on school vouchers.
The report cites a lack of oversight and wasteful spending in a school voucher program that uses public school funding to pay for private education and home schooling.
The state auditor general’s report raises red flags over how the ESA program is being run, citing a lack of oversight, wasteful spending and conflicts of interest.
Jennifer Jennings is a professor at Princeton University and an expert in school choice issues. She read over the report and said there needs to be more transparency about how money is spent and how it is being audited.
“I’ve never seen, quite frankly, Jason, a system that is so loosey-goosey as this; they’re doing the audit offline, not within the class wallet system, in a weekly Excel sheet that gets passed around the office,” Jennings said.
“It’s a nice way for us to plan our vacation for a week, but we are not running a billion-dollar program,” she said.
“As a taxpayer in your state, I would want a little more assurance than 12 folks working in an office with an Excel sheet passed around,” Jennings said.