ESA program to cost taxpayers $900 million in 2024

PHOENIX — Under new rules this year, any student can apply for an empowerment scholarship account.

The cap is an $8,000 annual benefit, paid by the state to use towards education expenses, and includes tuition, and private and parochial schools. Prior to the universal expansion, about 11,000 students, mostly with disabilities, were enrolled in the program.

On Tuesday evening, the Arizona Department of Education projected that universal empowerment scholarships will cost Arizona taxpayers $900 million in 2024.

The cost is nearly twice the amount Republicans estimate the cost to be.

The new projection came two weeks after the Governor signed the $17.8 billion 2024 operating budget.

"We were working with the best data we had," said John Ward, ADE's Chief Auditor defending the time of the release. "So as enrollment numbers continued to come in every single week we were trying to wait to build in as many weeks as possible with actual data to make a good projection."

The Department of Education projects 100,000 students will be enrolled in the ESA program in 2024.

Budgeted at a half billion dollars for 2024, Democrats warned about the program's rising expense. But Republicans, who have the majority in the legislature, refused any attempt to cap or cut ESA's.

In a statement, Governor Hobbs said, "Republicans need to explain why they are forcing runaway spending on Arizona taxpayers and making working families foot the bill for private school tuitions."

Tuesday evening, house minority leader Andres Cano said the ESA program is bankrupting the state.

According to Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, 49%, nearly half of all the scholarships are going to students who attended public schools.

The money will just follow them to their new school. "Students that are going to be protected for the next year are going to be educated someplace," said Horne. "They're either going to be educated in the public schools or they're going to be educated in ESA's and so the state is going to have a cost and if it the ESA's, it's going to be 10% less."

Democrats in the legislature are not buying Horne's math. "Already we're seeing the fiscal cliff come. The $900 million in ongoing cost is not insignificant. We'll either have to tap the rainy day fund or we'll have to cut core state priorities," said Representative Cano.

The Arizona Education Association's President Marisol Garcia released a statement Tuesday evening after the Department of Education's announcement:

“A small group of politicians and their corporate allies have spent more than a decade systematically undermining public education. Now, the voucher program they created is on track to cost Arizona $900 million over the next 12 months. Are we seriously about to bankrupt our state subsidizing private school tuition for the wealthy? 

Arizona is 49th in the nation for per-pupil public school funding, with thousands of educators leaving the state or the profession in search of higher pay and better benefits. But instead of funding the public schools attended by 90% of Arizona kids, we’re about to spend nearly a billion dollars helping the rich pay for private school.

We can’t go on like this. The universal voucher program must be repealed.”

Wednesday, Speaker Ben Toma shared a statement with ABC15:

"Clearly, the ESA program is very popular with Arizona parents, and we expect it will continue to be. At present, the ESA program represents roughly three percent of all state funding for K-12 education. According to analysis previously conducted by the Legislature's nonpartisan budget staff, using data provided by ADE, ESA enrollment is expected to reach 68,000 students in FY24, which is the estimate used for the recently passed state budget. ADE's new round-number estimate provokes natural skepticism, and JLBC staff will need to thoroughly review the data and methodology they used before we can comment on it further."