Candidates for the state House and Senate in a Scottsdale-based legislative district dueled in a debate on Aug. 24 over school vouchers and a ballot measure that would mandate how much money goes to classrooms.
Republicans Cody Reim and George Khalaf, who are running for the state House, support Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program, which provides public money to families to spend on private education.
They don’t think it needs new guardrails, despite state auditors finding in May that the Arizona Department of Education isn’t properly administering the program, which has grown to 104,000 students and is expected to cost more than $1.2 billion next year.
“The ESA program has less than 1% of waste,” Reim said.
The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission held the debate to help voters in Legislative District 3 choose two candidates for the House and one for the Senate on Nov. 3. Early ballots go out Oct. 7.
The district covers much of northern Scottsdale and part of north Phoenix, stretching north through Fountain Hills, Anthem, New River, Cave Creek and Carefree.
Legislative District 3
Reim, who was appointed to one of the House seats in LD3 in March and is running for election, said the ESA program offers an out for students stuck in failing schools and that roughly half the per-pupil appropriation stays with the state when a student uses a voucher to attend a private school.
“So it’s not taking every dime from what would have been spent on that child in public education and allowing it to go with the families to the education system of their choice,” Reim said.
Khalaf, a pollster and political consultant, said he’s been advocating for the program for 10 years and hopes to be on the House Education Committee if he’s elected. He said the program has guardrails that work or else no one would have caught the highly publicized misuse of funds on luxury items, travel and other expenses not connected to education.
The program began in 2011 with just special education students eligible and grew incrementally as lawmakers added different classes of students until finally making it available to all Arizona students in 2022. The original cost estimate for the first fiscal year of universal ESAs was $33 million, but it exploded as enrollment rapidly expanded.
Democratic House candidate Julie Gable
Democrat Julie Gable, a business owner, said she supports the program’s original purpose of providing extra resources for special education students whose needs traditional public schools can’t meet. And she supports school choice, she said, but the program’s rapid growth is problematic.
“In any regular business situation, this would be a glaring red light,” Gable said.
She said Khalaf also seems to advocate for public schools while “in the same breath, he sounds very anxious to shut them down.”
“I have to say, if he says that Republicans in the Legislature currently are leading the charge on public education and supporting it, I don’t see where that is true,” Gable said.
Gable said an example of neglected education funding is the Republican-controlled Legislature’s failure to put a renewal of Proposition 123 on the ballot. The 2016 voter-approved measure taps the state land trust to pay for annual inflation costs for state funds to public schools. The Legislature has been using general fund monies since the ballot measure expired in 2025.
Democratic House candidate Rick Spargo
Gable’s fellow Democratic candidate, Rick Spargo, said the state should be “going after” the swindlers in the program to reduce costs. He said the $1 billion cost is a drain on the budget and unsustainable, and the way to improve public education is to pay teachers their worth and put more dollars into it.
“It’s unfortunate that Rick thinks that those 104,000 students are a drain on the budget,” Khalaf said.
In a separate debate, Republican Sen. John Kavanagh and his Democratic opponent, Jeff Fortney, also addressed the ESA program.
Republican Sen. John Kavanagh
Kavanagh said the program has a manpower problem, which allowed some of the scam purchases to get through, but the Department of Education eventually caught the purchases and made the families repay.
Fortney, a special education teacher and member of the Cave Creek Unified School District Governing Board, said he also supports ESAs for special education students using the program, but he would repeal the universal eligibility.
He said his school district has some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the state and many of the families have always sent their children to private schools, but they got a windfall when the ESA program became universal in 2022.
Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Fortney
“Now they start getting $7,000, $10,000 coupons to continue sending their kids to those private schools,” Fortney said. “Some of these kids — we have over 1,000 kids that live within the Cave Creek School District that are out on these vouchers — and probably most of them have never set foot in our schools.”
The debate on education policy didn’t end with ESAs.
Proposition 320, which will be on the November ballot, would require large school districts to spend at least 60% of their operating budget on direct classroom instruction such as teachers and material instruction. Otherwise, they’ll face a penalty and lose state funding.
According to the Auditor General’s Office, Arizona school districts allocated 52.1% of their funds to classroom instruction such as teachers, teachers’ aides, substitute teachers, general instructional supplies and aids, field trips and athletics in fiscal year 2025. That’s the lowest amount since fiscal year 2004, when the school spent 58.6% on classroom instruction. Administration and maintaining schools made up the bulk of non-classroom spending.
Republican Rep. Cody Reim
Reim said he voted as a lawmaker to refer the measure to the ballot and will vote for it again on his ballot because it will provide more money for teacher salaries.
“This is necessary because many school districts in Arizona are not spending the majority of their funds on the classroom where it belongs,” Reim said.
Khalaf also said he’ll vote yes on the measure.
“It shouldn’t be (the Legislature’s) job to be telling school districts how to spend their money, but the problem is, they’re not spending it wisely,” Khalaf said.
Gable and Spargo said they’ll vote no, saying 60% is an arbitrary number.
Gable said she’s for properly funding schools through the land trust and giving teachers raises, but right now Arizona has a high teacher turnover rate, which requires extra money for recruiting and training.
“So if we really are serious about helping our schools and funding our schools and paying our teachers, then we don’t put an arbitrary 60% number out there and then take away funds to punish them if they don’t meet them,” Gable said.
The candidates addressed a wide variety of other subjects.
2020 election
Reim and Khalaf refused to say whether they thought the 2020 election was free and fair.
“I’m looking forward to the next elections and how we can make them more secure,” Reim said.
Republican House candidate George Khalaf
Khalaf said he would not answer a “politicized question” in the rapid fire round of the debate.
Data centers
Spargo said Arizona should impose a moratorium on all data centers, while the other candidates want a more measured approach that includes a temporary moratorium on tax incentives, requiring them to be located outside of residential neighborhoods, considering the views and concerns of communities and having them pay for their own water, infrastructure and power.
On affordability
Kavanagh said the Legislature can make life more affordable by cutting taxes.
“I mean, if you want to put more money into people’s pockets, then you don’t take the money out,” Kavanagh said.
Fortney said he would cap the number of institutional investors who buy up the housing stock, which would be one step toward affordable housing.