Head of Arizona school voucher program resigns as Hobbs memo stirs debate on costs

The executive director of Arizona's school voucher program, which has grown in the past year to more than 60,000 students, making it bigger than any public school district in the state, resigned Monday.

Christine Accurso began directing the Empowerment Scholarship Account program within the Arizona Department of Education in January, when Republican Tom Horne took office as the state’s superintendent of public instruction.

"It is time for me to move on and pursue opportunities to engage citizens, especially parents, to fight for school choice and the other issues they believe in, for the future of our state and of our nation," Accurso said in a statement.

She oversaw the voucher program during a time of rapid growth, which began during the final months of the Education Department's administration by Kathy Hoffman, Horne's predecessor. Last year, the Legislature massively expanded the voucher program to make all school-age children eligible for public funding. The most common voucher amount is around $7,000 per student. That money can be used for private school tuition, homeschool supplies, tutoring and other educational resources.

Previously, the program had been restricted to select groups, including students with disabilities and children in foster care.

Before her role in the Horne administration, Accurso was a staunch proponent of universal voucher expansion. She encouraged people not to sign petitions by voucher opponents that would have put the expansion before voters. She also served as the head of an anti-abortion pregnancy center in Phoenix.

According to Department of Education spokesperson Doug Nick, Accurso told the department that she took the school voucher director position to "clean up" the recently expanded program and "having successfully done that she has chosen to move on."

At the end of the 2021-22 school year, there were roughly 12,000 students in the program.

In late December 2022, just before Horne took office, there were about 45,000.

As of Monday, there were roughly 60,500.

"She worked tirelessly managing the ... operation during a period of unprecedented growth and confronted the various challenges that accompany the transition from a limited program to one available to all Arizona parents," Nick said.

The Horne administration has promised that universal school vouchers would bring equity to school choice in Arizona, but as it has ballooned, Democratic lawmakers and public education advocates have raised concerns about how to fund it. The initial rush of school voucher enrollments in September came from students already enrolled in private schools, according to an analysis by the state Education Department.

Early in the Horne administration, Accurso and the voucher program came under fire by parents of students with special education needs who told the State Board of Education that the program was being poorly administered and they were experiencing late payments. Vendors serving the program said they were experiencing late payments and a lack of communication from the Education Department. Accurso attributed payment issues to a backlog that began under Hoffman and problems with the company that processes payments.

Accurso oversaw significant changes to the voucher program's handbook for parents, which was approved in April. The revisions included allowing students with disabilities to be assessed by an independent evaluator or private school in addition to a public school, requiring families to submit a curriculum for items not commonly used for educational purposes, and lessening the credential requirements for a tutor.

The school voucher program will now be under the direction of John Ward, the internal auditor brought to the department from the Arizona Auditor General's Office when Horne took office, Nick said.

Ward has 16 years of experience as an auditor and "extensive knowledge of the many technical aspects of managing the large financial system required" to operate the school voucher program as it grows, he said.

Governor: School vouchers will lead to state budget shortfall this year

On Tuesday, Gov. Katie Hobbs’ office released a memo estimating the school voucher program will cost $953.8 million in the current budget year, leading to a shortfall of nearly $320 million in the state budget.

That cost estimate is generally in line with a projection from Horne, who in late May pegged the program’s cost at $900 million.

The memo triggered a barrage of criticism and rebuttals from opponents and proponents of the program. House Democrats called the program "out of control and unsustainable," prompting House Speaker Ben Toma, the sponsor of the universal voucher program, to call the governor's estimates "baseless."

Toma, R-Glendale, also noted Hobbs signed the state budget, which included school voucher funding based on an estimated 68,000 students — a number agreed upon by both Republicans and Democrats. But two months later, Toma said, the governor suggests the program will attract 97,500 students.

While Toma said Hobbs' new figure is unsupported, it is very close to Horne's estimate of 100,000 students.

A 'deep dive' on the students getting school vouchers is coming

Toma told The Arizona Republic he has hired economist Alan Maguire to do a "deep dive" analysis on the population of school voucher recipients to determine where students entering the voucher program are coming from, including whether students now accepting vouchers are leaving public schools. That would clarify the cost to the state budget, as well as measure whether the program is meeting one of its stated objectives of giving students from lower-income families more educational choices.

The program's growth, and how much it will cost taxpayers, has been a source of constant debate at the state Capitol.

Added costs for Arizona budget: School vouchers were supposed to save money for Arizona. So far, it's not working.

Horne maintains any increased cost will be offset by savings in the public school budget as students leave public schools and move to the voucher program.

But Hobbs’ memo states more than half of the school voucher enrollment has come from students outside the public school system, such as private schools and homeschooling environments, at a new cost of $7,200 per student. If that continues, the school voucher program will cost the state $319.8 million more than the current budget provides.

Her memo estimated that 53.25% of the new spending on K-12 will be directed to just 8% of students.

The Legislature’s budget office has taken a more cautious approach, opting to wait for fall enrollment figures before revising its spending projections. For now, it is sticking to its estimate of 68,000 students using school vouchers this year, and has called Horne's 100,000 student projection "highly speculative."

What's next for school vouchers and the state budget?

Hobbs’ memo didn’t offer any immediate solutions, but her spokesperson Christian Slater said all options are on the table.

Those options include accountability and transparency measures, such as requiring academic assessment tests at schools that accept voucher dollars; establishing audits to monitor for fraud in the program and monitor what percentage of voucher dollars are spent in the classroom; and reverting to a former requirement that voucher students must have been in a public school before entering the voucher program.

Toma said his hope is that the analysis Maguire is expected to produce will provide data that can fuel an "honest conversation."

Slater would not comment on whether the governor is contemplating budget cuts to offset the anticipated shortfall. The memo added that more information on voucher trends will be clearer as early as next month, as enrollment numbers from public schools become available. That could be a barometer of how many students are leaving public schools for the voucher program.

However, even those transfers are likely to cost the state money, given the way the voucher program is financed.

Madeleine Parrish covers K-12 education. Reach her at mparrish@arizonarepublic.com and follow her on Twitter at @maddieparrish61.

Mary Jo Pitzl covers state government. Reach her at maryjo.pitzl@arizonarepublic.com or at 602-228-7566 and follow her on Twitter @maryjpitzl.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Empowerment Scholarship Account head Christine Accurso resigns