State 48 Update: ESA Oversight Battle Heats Up - Rolexes, Vasectomies, and Accountability
Arizona's Education Chief’s got two rules: Legitimate purpose. Reasonable cost. So why the outrage? State 48 News continues the conversation on education savings accounts and school choice.
The fight over Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program boils down to one question: Who should control public education dollars—and who’s watching how they’re spent?
State 48 News brings you voices from the left, the right, and the man stuck in the political crossfire: Superintendent Tom Horne, who says he’s not backing down from the job he was hired to do—safeguard the program before it implodes under its own weight.
🚨 We’re not sure we’ll ever have a guest light up like Stacey Brown did today.
While recording an interview with State 48 News, the longtime ESA school choice advocate received breaking news in real time: The Arizona State Board of Education has pulled the controversial ESA handbook from its upcoming meeting agenda.
Brown, a vocal critic of the proposed handbook—particularly its spending caps—has been leading the charge against what she sees as government overreach into parental choice.
Taxpayer Funds, Luxury Items, and Legislative Clashes: The ESA Breakdown
As Arizona’s budget faces mounting pressure—not only from disability services but also from the explosive growth of the state’s popular universal school choice ESA voucher program—State 48 News, in an exclusive one-on-one interview, asked Superintendent Tom Horne for his take on the financial strain and where school choice education funding should be prioritized.
Superintendent Tom Horne didn’t mince words when asked about the clash over ESA voucher oversight—especially critics including Sen. Jake Hoffman leading the charge.
“Their view is that I don’t have legislative authority to limit what the parents can get,” Horne said. “My view is that I was made the manager of the program, and that like any manager of a program with taxpayer funds, it has to be honest, it has to be prudent, it has to be reasonable.”
Horne requires every ESA expenditure be for a legitimate educational purpose and be a reasonable cost according to the market.
Horne said if he hadn’t stepped in to limit spending, the state would be on the hook for outrageous purchases—including a Rolex watch and a vasectomy.
“If I would have paid those things, it would have been big news, big headlines. The public would have reacted. And the program would have been jeopardized. I consider one of my responsibilities is sustainability of the program. So that’s the difference between myself and my critics,” Horne says.
State 48 News asks Horne if he is committed to seeing ESA school choice grow. “Absolutely,” he responds. “It’s among my very highest priorities to make sure the program is successful and flourishes. Parents need to have a choice.” Horne says parents who feel their children’s needs are not being met need to have choice.
We reached out to Sen. Hoffman for comment.
“Four. Zero.” ESA Advocate Stacey Brown Slams Fraud Claims, Celebrates Handbook Reversal in Exclusive Interview
State 48 News spoke exclusively with Arizona school choice advocate Stacey Brown, a mother to three biological children and 11 foster children. Brown, who homeschools, discovered the ESA program while advocating against Save Our Schools during the Governor Ducey administration.
She believes in strong funding for homeschooling and a family's right to choose their child’s education path.
When asked about criticism that ESA is for the wealthy or rife with fraud, Brown didn’t hesitate.
“They’re wrong. It is not for the rich people. My husband is a public school teacher,” she said.
“We’ve made sacrifices to homeschool as an ESA family and in order for me to be at home with my children.”
Addressing allegations of fraud, Brown said: “There has only been 40. 40 fraudulent transactions.”
State 48’s Jennifer Barber responded, “Wait a minute, if I was just to rely on the media, I would think it was 400 or 4,000. You’re telling me 40?”
“I’m telling you 40. Four. Zero,” Brown affirmed.
She credited Superintendent Tom Horne and the Arizona Department of Education for catching them. “Excellent job with the millions of transactions… and you caught the 40.”
Brown said ESA families want a program that works—for their kids and the ADE. But she criticized the Department’s recent attempt to introduce spending caps via the ESA handbook. A former member of the Handbook Committee, Brown claims caps were added without proper approval. “I voiced that this was not lawful. It became problematic.”
When asked what middle ground exists between fiscal accountability and parent autonomy, she was blunt:
“Follow the law. It’s been written. It’s a sealed deal… The fraudulent activity is so small… Why aren’t people talking about the Isaac School District who had millions that magically disappeared?”
Brown argued ESA lacks bipartisan support and responded to Democratic claims it’s draining the budget: “That is a boldface lie… Over 50% of the entire budget goes to the public school sector.”
On caps for students with disabilities, she said emotionally: “Outraged is the word. The state is asking them to fight for everything they need.”
Responding to State 48’s investigation into public school superintendents earning up to half a million dollars, Brown said: “I literally can’t even fathom having $400,000 as my annual salary… Maybe we should have more discussion around where the tax dollars are going and who they’re paying to help our children.”
Brown believes the current Handbook Committee is “angled against homeschoolers and students with disabilities,” and says it should be scrapped for a new one with equal representation.
In a dramatic end to the interview, Brown’s phone lit up: she had just received news that the Arizona State Board of Education pulled the ESA handbook vote from Monday’s meeting agenda—a development she called a major win.
Simacek Slams Legislature: “They’re Bleeding Out the Budget with ESA Vouchers”
At an April 22 Deer Valley Unified School District board meeting, Rep. Stephanie Simacek (D-LD2) didn’t hold back. In a fiery rebuke of the Arizona Legislature’s handling of public education, the state lawmaker—who also serves on the House Education Committee—accused her colleagues of deliberately starving public schools of resources.
“The state continues over and over and over to defund public education,” Simacek said, pointing to the Legislature’s failure to hear a single pro-public school bill in the early weeks of the session.
She went further, calling the lack of oversight on ESA vouchers a calculated move. “This is a strategy to defund public education,” she warned. “They are literally bleeding out our budget with ESA vouchers.”
Simacek said despite resistance, she and a few others are still fighting. “I want people to know there are lawmakers down there who care about our kids and our teachers. But it’s extremely difficult.”
THE MORE YOU KNOW.
🚨 BREAKING: The Arizona Senate just took up HB2945 to extend funding for the state’s collapsing DDD services—and the board lit up fast.
✅ Final vote: 28-1-1.
❌ The only “no” came from Sen. Jake Hoffman and Sen. Shawnna Bolick a NV - not voting.
With the emergency clause intact, the bill now heads to Governor Hobbs' desk for signature.
Thousands of Arizona families just got a lifeline—but the fight over priorities at the Capitol is far from over.
A new nonpartisan site called FUND DDD is making waves—built by families, parents, advocates, and individuals with disabilities who say they are fed up with being ignored. The site pulls together raw stories, urgent facts, and bold ideas from those who depend on DDD funding to survive—and it's calling out the system before it collapses. “The goal of this website is to raise awareness about the critical funding crisis that DDD is facing and give unbiased information and actions people can take to make their needs heard,” it says.
State 48 News is wanting to know more about the FUND DDD website. Please contact us if you are affiliated with the group. We keep our sources private.