By Caitlin Sievers | AZ Mirror
The Arizona Attorney General’s Office is investigating the state’s school voucher program for alleged illegal payments that were approved without documentation required by state law.
The Empowerment Scholarship Account program works by giving the parents of participating students a debit card that can be used to pay for various educational costs, or reimbursing the parents for those costs. The costs can include private school tuition, homeschooling supplies or the money can even be saved for college.
The program originated in 2012, but was expanded in 2022 from serving a limited group of about 12,000 students who met specific criteria to a universal program available to all of the state’s roughly one million K-12 students.
After the expansion, enrollment skyrocketed to around 74,000 at the end of the last school year. That was more than the 68,000 students expected to enroll, with costs significantly higher than expected, at around $723.5 million — nearly $100 million more than was originally budgeted.
