By Mary Jo Pitzl
Capitol Media Services
PHOENIX -- A school voucher reform plan being pitched to voters would impose new tasks on the state's Empowerment Scholarship Account program to curb costs and provide accountability.
But it doesn't provide any money to do so -- and its critics say that could violate a constitutional requirement that new spending must identify a funding source.
The promoters of Fortify AZ say there's no need to add a new pot of money to make their proposals work. That's because the changes would save the state money, not cost more, according to spokesman Barrett Marson.
The Fortify initiative was launched in response to a voucher plan backed by public school advocates and the state’s teacher union.
Both measures claim to curb costs and provide accountability to a program that has seen explosive growth in the last 3 1/2 years -- including numerous accounts of questionable spending, from lingerie and diamond rings to household appliances and resort stays.
But the Protect Education Now proposal has something else: A mandate to transfer $1.75 million a year from the medical marijuana fund to pay for the costs of new regulation. That, sponsors said, meets the constitutional requirement that any ballot measure proposing a spending increase "must also provide for an increased source of revenues sufficient to cover the entire immediate and future cost of the proposal.''
The union-backed initiative also would impose a $150,000 cap on parental income -- adjusted annually for inflation -- for those who want state money for private and parochial schools and home schooling. The Fortify initiative does not have a cap, as does the current voucher program.
Fortify supporters contend that by installing a better process for paying out voucher money, the state Department of Education would save money.
"Fortify's initiative updates and automates the review process with the ability (to) identify ineligible expense at the front end, greatly reducing the practice of chasing and approving expenses after the fact,'' Marson said in a statement. "This protects the taxpayer and cuts the intense administrative burden for ADE on the back end.''
It's unclear how much money and manpower it would take to set up the online marketplace payment system the initiative proposes, nor how much money such a move could save. Marson acknowledged the campaign does not have numbers to back up its claim of cost savings.
The initiative proposes other changes, including a requirement that the Department of Education create a list of approved curricula, provide a list of approved tests to measure students' academic process, and issue reports on those test results. It also requires an annual report to the state attorney general and an annual survey of ESA parents, among other things.
Backers of the competing voucher initiative aren’t buying the cost-saving arguments.
Changes such as building an online payment system or vetting a list of acceptable curricula and supplemental materials, have a cost, said Jim Barton, attorney for the Protect Education Act.
He conceded there could be some alterations to Class Wallet, the existing mechanism the department uses to issue voucher funds. But that wouldn't be enough to bypass the revenue source rule, he argued.
"In any case, you definitely have to spend some money to make this new way of doing things spring into action,'' he said.
Voters approved what's known as the "revenue source rule'' in 2004, passing it with 55% of the vote. It requires any initiative or referendum that creates a new fund or requires more state spending to identify a funding source. It was designed to keep new programs from tapping into the state’s general fund.
The Protect Education Act seeks to comply by targeting $1.75 million in excess money in the state's medical marijuana program to pay for new expenses incurred by the act.
Those include accountability and safety measures as well as creating guardrails that would prohibit spending on luxury items. The money would go to Arizona Deparment of Education, the State Board of Education, the Department of Public Safety (for mandatory fingerprinting of teachers) and the attorney general.
Although the law doesn't require specific amounts, it does require a funding source, Barton said.
"Just hoping that savings cover costs is not good enough to meet legal requirements,'' he added. "Continuing with a ballot measure that is likely to be struck down by the courts is disrespectful to voters and dishonest.''
This is the latest flashpoint between the two competing initiatives. Earlier, Protect Education Act supporters complained that Fortify poached its petition passers; Fortify said they simply offered a better wage.
As both groups are circulating nomination petitions to qualify for the November ballot, public school advocates have argued that Fortify is trying to confuse voters and is not sincere about reforming the voucher program.
Fortify has denied those allegations and charged that Protect Education backers would "gut school choice in Arizona.''
The wrangling grew louder when Fortify reported that much of its fundraising is from the American Federation for Children, which is chaired by former U.S. Secretary of Education and school-choice advocate Betsy DeVos, who served in the first Trump administration.
Protect Education is backed heavily by the National Education Association, a union for public school staffers.
State schools chief Tom Horne said he was not familiar with the details of the Fortify initiative. But requiring the Department of Education to do more work without providing the money to cover those costs would be akin to "requiring us to make bricks without straw,'' he said, using a biblical reference to illustrate the difficulty of doing more without the needed resources.
The Department of Education, whch Horne runs, has struggled to keep up with the burgeoning program, which has mushroomed from about 12,000 students to 101,500 students since it was opened up to all Arizona children in 2022.
The strain became so severe that in 2024 the Department of Education decided to issue any voucher purchase under $2,000 without first checking whether the expenditure was valid. It said it would review those expenditures after the fact, using a practice called risk-based auditing.
Horne has repeatedly complained that the department doesnt have the funding to grow at the same pace as student enrollments in ESAs.
"You can't expect to do things without people to do them,'' he said. And that takes money.
Horne said he doesn’t back either of the competing initiatives.
Both layer on more requirements and oversight for ADE, which he said is not needed.
"We don’t need more of that,'' he said. "What we need is people to do the work.''
Horne also said he believes neither will pass if they get before voters in the November election.
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