Arizona roots out school voucher fraud, one angry ex-boyfriend at a time

A tip of the hat to the guy who blew the whistle on his ex-girlfriend, claiming she was scamming the state’s school voucher and state health care programs.

His ex and two of her friends now stand accused of collectively scamming nearly $88,000 in ESA money over nearly four years and another $42,000 from AHCCSS.

Over nearly four years …

… Without anyone from the state noticing that the woman’s special needs son — a teen who supposedly needs 24/7 care — was the lead singer in a punk-rock band that gave concerts to large crowds in Arizona and California, according to 12 News’ Joe Dana.

I suppose we should be thankful for failed relationships, given what appears to be a glaring lack of accountability both in the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program and the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System.

And an appalling disinterest among our Republican legislators in keeping better tabs on how our money is spent.

Mom snagged thousands of dollars

This alleged scam, part of a larger investigation by Attorney General Kris Mayes, took place from January 2017 through August 2022, under the eagle eye of then-state Superintendent Kathy Hoffman, a Democrat.

The women, Michelle Dils, Sarah Ishler and Angela Turner, were indicted by a Maricopa County grand jury last summer on a total of 25 charges of fraud, theft and illegal control of an enterprise.

According to the Attorney General’s Office report, obtained this week by 12 News’ Dana, Dils claimed her son had a medical disability that required 24/7 care and special needs ESA funding. The women then created a series of companies with names like Arizona School for Exceptional Kids and All Family Solutions and Love Learning LLC.

Through those companies, investigators say they collectively snagged at least $129,000 to provide round-the-clock care of the boy and four to six hours of daily homeschooling.

According to the report, Dils managed to score $26,000 a year in ESA funds for a total of $106,000, uploading receipts supposedly documenting her homeschooling purchases.

But investigators say most of the money actually was spent on “day-to-day living at retail stores and restaurants” along with purchases from Amazon, rides from Uber and lodging in an Airbnb.

I suppose an Airbnb would come in handy for those concerts in California.

Music class, I guess you could call it.

GOP called accountability plan DOA

It’s worth pointing out that AG's investigators could find “no formal diagnosis” of the boy’s disability. They did, however, find pictures of him on social media, performing with his punk rock band.

It’s also worth pointing out that Gov. Katie Hobbs has proposed a plan aimed at adding accountability and transparency to the exploding school voucher program.

And that Republican legislative leaders promptly pronounced the plan dead on arrival, calling it an attempt to strangle their signature program with bureaucracy and regulation.

Meanwhile, state Superintendent Tom Horne insists there's nothing to see here, that all ESA expenses are individually reviewed to weed out “frivolous requests” and that he’s forwarded 10 cases to the AG’s Office.

“This fraud and abuse occurred under my predecessor,” he wrote on Tuesday, in a social media post responding to Dana’s story. “As the former Attorney General, I’ll follow the law and ensure that every ESA expense is for educational purposes.”

So says the superintendent whose office has doled out vouchers for such critical educational expenses as ski passes and trampoline time and lessons in how to drive a Lamborghini.

ESAs still need additional safeguards

There is still time for Republicans to reconsider adding some safeguards to the runaway ESA program.

Even if Horne is weeding out punk rockers who claim to need $26,000 worth of schooling on the public's dime, he won’t be state superintendent forever.

More than 75,000 students are now getting ESAs at a cost approaching $900 million a year.

And our leaders don’t think any additional eyeballs are warranted to monitor how our money is being spent?

Republicans shouldn’t close their eyes to the possibility that, without at least some additional controls, their ESA program could blow up in their faces, resulting in a wholly different sort of empowerment.

The kind that involves angry taxpayers reaching for their pitchforks.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X, formerlyTwitter, at @LaurieRoberts or on Threads at @laurierobertsaz.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona finds school voucher fraud, one angry ex-boyfriend at a time