The Daily Agenda: The ESA black box

Data only helps if you use it ... Pinal County needs that redemption arc ... And grovel away, Kari!

As the cost of school vouchers balloons to unprecedented levels and the state faces its first budget crunch in nearly a decade, a panel of lawmakers and experts is trying to get a grip on exactly how many ESAs the state will kick out under the new universal voucher law, who they’re going to and how much they’ll ultimately cost. 

But don’t expect a lot of insight from the panel, which was set up in May and has only met once so far ahead of its planned year-end report. 

The ad hoc committee was part of the compromise between Republican and Democratic leaders that helped wrangle support for the bipartisan budget. Democrats hailed the committee as a big step toward accountability, and maybe even curtailing the program, while even Republicans agreed that getting some real numbers on the program would be the fiscally responsible way to proceed. 

AI image generators have come a long way since we started toying with them this spring. We fed today’s newsletter into ChatGPT 4’s new Dall-E plugin and asked for an image matching the vibe and content. It’s pretty good!

We know that about 70,000 kids are using ESAs under Arizona’s new universal voucher program. But the committee’s first meeting in September highlighted just how little we actually know about who those kids are.

Members of the committee will meet today for the second and likely final time, as the committee is set to self-destruct at the end of the year. Gov. Katie Hobbs was traveling during the first meeting and attempted to send a proxy, Democratic Sen. Christine Marsh, a former Arizona teacher of the year, but the Senate rejected her. Hobbs won’t attend today’s hearing either, her spokesman confirmed, and she hasn’t designated a new proxy.

Does anyone think that two meetings containing a few short presentations of facts lawmakers mostly already know will suddenly spur new and informative insights into the state’s ESA program? 

This isn’t a question of what data to collect. It’s a question of whether our elected leaders have the political will to collect that data and act upon it, whether that means capping the program — or simply budgeting for it.

Ever since the ESA program’s inception more than a decade ago, it has been clear that oversight is lacking, money has been misspent and state lawmakers don’t really want to know about it. In 2014, a woman paid for an abortion with ESA funds. But even that didn’t spur Republican lawmakers into action to provide real reform or oversight on the program. 

Since then, the ESA program has grown from serving a few thousand kids with disabilities to being an option for all of Arizona’s 1.1 million K-12 students. 

ABC15 recently found parents paying for ski passes, trampoline parks and new pianos, which is apparently OK, according to John Ward, the executive director of the ESA program at the Department of Education, who also sits on the ad hoc committee. 

“These are absolutely allowable,” Ward told ABC15. “Now, if it was a luxury piano, some type of grand piano, baby grand, we may not approve that as a luxury item.”

Even for those who love school vouchers, there is good reason to enact some level of oversight. Assuming lawmakers are willing to spend whatever it takes to make ESAs available to everyone, the kind of blank-check budgeting they have done with the ESA program isn’t fiscally conservative. We should know how much it’ll cost. 

Fraud, waste and abuse in the system only fan the flames of critics and decrease public trust in school vouchers. It’s not good for the budget or the ESA system. We need better systems to root it out. 

Without better data and oversight about how Arizonans are using ESAs, we’ll never actually address the problems that have plagued the program since it was first enacted in 2011. 

Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of hope today’s meeting will result in real change. 

But given the state’s fiscal crunch, perhaps lawmakers will actually get curious about how much the program costs and whether it’s actually providing a better education to students, or whether it’s just paying for pianos for rich kids.

Considering the Legislature’s history of simply burying its head in the sand when it comes to problems in Arizona’s now-massive school voucher program, simply showing some real interest would be a good start. 

On high hopes and low bars: Pinal County’s November election to decide a few school district override races went “swimmingly” under new Recorder Dana Lewis, setting high hopes for a redemption arc after last year’s dismal primary and a 500-vote discrepancy in the general election, the Republic’s Sasha Hupka reports. Maricopa County’s election faced an apparent snag when seven drop-off ballot boxes closed before the 7 p.m. deadline the recorder’s office stated, the Arizona Daily Independent writes. That claim was hit with a fact check from the Associated Press clarifying the early closures were posted on the county’s election website months in advance, although the messaging could have been clearer. Regardless, the election-rigging conspiracies are resounding throughout social media. 

We’re on all the hot lawsuits: Several familiar figures in Arizona’s legal sphere are asking the Supreme Court to uphold a federal law that bars those with domestic violence restraining orders from possessing firearms, the Republic’s Jimmy Jenkins reports. Former Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ruth McGregor and the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence (the namesake of former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords) were among those who filed briefs in support of the law in the United States v. Rahimi case. The Supreme Court is set to hear a case deciding the fate of DACA next year, and some of the 21,890 active DACA recipients in Arizona are weighing dire consequences if they're forced to relocate to their country of origin, the Republic’s Morgan Fischer writes. 

“I don’t want to go back to Mexico; there’s so much trauma that happened with my family,” said Reyna Montoya, who’s lived in Arizona since she was 10. “I don’t want to leave home. (Arizona) is home.” 

So, an exclusive indoor Zone?: Phoenix is building a “structured campground” in an air-conditioned warehouse with renovated shipping containers and tents to house downtown Phoenix’s unsheltered population, the Republic’s Helen Rummel reports. The grounds will eventually have a capacity of 300 people, but they must be directed there by a social services agency to enter and must adhere to an 11 p.m. curfew. 

A new twist on “gated community”: Phoenix City Council will consider a $750,000 request to install gates at 145 alley segments throughout the city, KJZZ’s Christina Estes reports. Phoenix started a pilot program to gate off public alleys after a man hopped a backyard fence and exposed himself to children in 2017. Since then, the city has installed gates at 200 alley segments. 

Adios: After a 27-year stint on the Pima County Board of Supervisors, Sharon Bronson is quitting, effective in two weeks. She told the Green Valley News that tripping over her cat and spending four days in the hospital was a wake-up call, but also she’s not a big fan of where her party is heading or what her colleagues are doing. 

“We have three new board members and we're going to go broke soon if they don't change their spending habits," Bronson said. 

Old folks love CrackerJax: Scottsdale City Council is set to consider a billion-dollar mixed-use development at the site of the former CrackerJax amusement park, the Phoenix Business Journal’s Ron Davis reports. Meanwhile, Chandler residents are pushing back against an affordable housing project, even after developer Dominium conceded to downsizing the number of units and raising the age limit to 55-plus, the Republic’s Sam Kmack reports. 

Better than being last: Arizona has become the first state to stop seizing financial benefits from foster children and will instead deposit social security and disability payments into savings accounts for the intended recipients, KJZZ’s Bridget Dowd reports. Child welfare agencies have historically used that funding to pay for foster care, but Arizona Department of Child Safety head David Lujan said he hopes the state’s budget will make up for the $4 million funding gap. 

Like a good neighbor, Raúl was there: Former Arizona Gov. Raúl Castro was “a good neighbor,” longtime residents of Nogales’ Crawford Street told the Nogales International’s Angela Gervasi for a piece about his legacy in the town and his home, which is now back in the family’s hands after a protracted legal battle with the University of Arizona. 

Kari Lake is apparently finally grappling with the fact that she did, in fact, lose the governor’s race and all the obvious questions that come along with that realization.

Now she’s groveling to the RINOs in her party. 

Republic columnist Laurie Roberts has a fantastic piece detailing all the kissing up Lake has been doing to people like Karrin Taylor Robson, Lake’s former opponent whom she called a “gold digger,” and Kathy Petsas, a longtime GOP activist from the McCain wing that Lake “drove a stake through the heart” of. 

It’s a pretty satisfying read. 

But what made it “What We’re Laughing At” material was this quote from self-proclaimed “pretty good” PR guy Barrett Marson. 

“I think I’m a pretty good PR/communication person but I have no f---ing idea of how she can erase two years of just the most vitriolic statements on the RINOs and moderate McCain wing of the Arizona Republican Party and independents, for that matter,” he told Roberts.