Certain individuals, according to Arizona investigative journalists, have thrust their greedy, grasping hands deep into the taxpayer money cookie jar, reaping scads of illicit funds at the expense of needy private schools and special needs children.
Reporters rightfully want to know just how much has been pilfered or wastefully misappropriated and just how avariciously thieves have plunged and plundered, but they can’t find out, because state officials are dodging their responsibility to provide the information, even though they are required to do so under Arizona’s Public Records Law.
When ClassWallet told requesters to go back to Yee and Horne, in effect, the buck stopped nowhere.
Channel 12 News strongly suspected the state was trying to hide something, wanted to know what, and weren’t going to be easily rebuffed in their quest for information—so they sued.
The television station has filed a lawsuit against Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, demanding records of expenditures under Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) for the past two years.
The ESA provides families with the flexibility to use state education funds for various educational expenses, allowing for a “customized learning experience for their children.”
But the lawsuit states that Yee and Horne have “delayed, denied and deflected” their responsibility to provide the records.
And while they were at it, the obstructing duo even managed to invent an entirely new method of avoiding requests under freedom of information laws—kicking the responsibility over to a private firm that, since it is not a public agency, isn’t required to provide the records.
That’s right: Even though the law states that the Department of Education and State Treasurer offices “shall administer” the ESA program, Yee told media they had to get the records from ClassWallet, a private administrative vendor company that manages the disbursement of ESA funds.
Yee—who is, to reiterate, the state’s treasurer—claimed, through her attorney, that she does not have “financial oversight or any other statutory, administrative or audit authority over the ESA program.”
Meanwhile, ClassWallet claims that all the payment records requested actually belong to the state, in effect sending the media back to Yee and Horne to try to get the information.
Nice trick.
It’s like every other fancy shell game that bureaucrats use to deny legitimate requests for information under freedom of information laws. There’s “glomaring,” where they say they can’t confirm the information even exists, let alone find it; there’s vast overcharging for reproduction of documents; there’s “slowrolling” requests for as long as possible, hoping requesters will just give up; or there’s using high-tech means to erase emails and messages before they can even be requested.
But Yee and Horne’s is a novel twist—passing the buck to a private business that isn’t required to obey the state’s open record laws. When ClassWallet told requesters to go back to Yee and Horne, in effect, the buck stopped nowhere.
“A program that genuinely met the needs of some special education students has been hijacked by special interests.”
The lawsuit further states that Yee and Horne “failed to provide access to or copies of all responsive records; made unavailing excuses for withholding or redacting basic public records; and pointed fingers at each other and the contractor hired to manage the ESA accounts when 12News challenged these violations.”
The treasurer’s office, according to spokesperson Alyssa Koury, is “strictly limited to overseeing contracting with firms to manage the ESA program, which does not involve administration of the program.”
It’s like that old kid’s game of “keep away,” where you grab somebody’s hat and, when they try to get it back, it’s passed to someone else—over and over.
Most concerning of all is that evidence suggests there is plenty for the government to hide—and good reason to hide it. Allegations from bits and pieces of records that the media have managed to dig up are shocking: During 2022–23, ESA program funds—meant for education programs—were wasted on 84 Lego sets at $500 apiece, 66 high-end KitchenAid mixers at $300 to $849 apiece and even diamond rings.
Empowerment scholarships run from $7,000 to $47,000 per year, with the higher sums earmarked for children with disabilities, but there is no requirement that families spend all the money.
Some families have been found to be hoarding cash they received under the program, apparently intending to use it to help pay for their kids’ college educations, or to pay for private schools or homeschooling.
Local media contends that $440 million in ESA funds is stashed away in accounts, not being used for its intended purpose.
“It’s unfair,” State Representative Nancy Gutierrez said. “This voucher money is supposed to be used for the student that year. That’s not happening. And it’s infuriating.
“It’s ludicrous.… It’s unjust.”
Nearly $20 million in ESA funds, for example, were spent on activities outside the school system, including private music lessons—$1 million on piano alone—and swimming lessons, math tutoring, gymnastics, dance, horseback riding and martial arts.
Kathy Boltz, mother of a special needs child, said, “A program that genuinely met the needs of some special education students has been hijacked by special interests who have a really different end goal in mind.”
In 2022, former Governor Doug Ducey signed a massive expansion of the ESA program, opening it up to everyone, regardless of income or special needs, and spending skyrocketed as the program was flooded with voucher requests.
There was little supervision of how the funds were spent, but some items were so outrageous they were actually (thankfully) denied.
For example, one family sought to obtain $65,333 for 109 laptops, computers and tablets. Yet another wanted a $2,295 freeze dryer. Yet another tried to get funding to buy their child a $16,170 cello, and another tried to justify buying a Rolex watch.
Local media discovered that, in fact, much of the questionably vouchered money went to the wealthiest zip code in the area, Paradise Valley, where a typical home goes for at least $3 million and the average household income is $182,150.
And these are supposedly “needy” kids?
But because bureaucrats are refusing to provide the records on how money was given out, the public doesn’t have the full story, and the media is forced into filing a lawsuit to get the government to carry out their legal duty.
Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard, a champion of open government—of, for and by the people—famously said: “Democracy depends exclusively on the informedness of the individual citizen.”
It’s a shame that Yee and Horne don’t seem to know that—or worse, that they do, and simply don’t care.
