$65 Million Projected. $1 Billion Actual.
When Arizona expanded its Empowerment Scholarship Accounts to universal eligibility, the state projected first-year costs of $65 million. Actual spending in Year 1 reached $940 million. The program now exceeds $1 billion annually and serves more than 100,000 students.
$65M projected. $940M actual. A 1,346% budget overshoot. Now over $1 billion. The Auditor General called the oversight “haphazard.”
That is a 1,346% overshoot. Not 13%. Not 134%. 1,346%.
2.3 Million Transactions, Almost No Review
The Arizona Auditor General found that between December 2024 and January 2026, the Department of Education automatically processed 2.3 million transactions below $2,000 worth more than $654 million. These were auto-approved before review.
The auditors described the department’s oversight as “haphazard, riddled with gaps.” The department did not always follow up on potentially problematic purchases. It was “haphazardly applying its own policy” of greenlighting transactions before review.
Even the top Republican lawmaker on the committee said the auditor general’s concerns “should be addressed.”
Who Gets the Money
The voucher program was sold as a way to give low-income families school choice. The data tells a different story. In Oklahoma, only 10.4% of voucher recipients were previously in public school. 72% had household incomes above $75,000. In North Carolina, 88.5% of voucher recipients never attended public school.
The money goes primarily to families who were already paying for private school. The public school system loses the funding. The students who remain in public schools, disproportionately low-income and students of color, attend schools with less money.
The Federal Version
The One Big Beautiful Bill includes a $26 billion federal school voucher tax credit with no cap, no civil rights requirements, and no accountability standards. If Arizona’s experience scales nationally, the cost will dwarf the projections.
411,000 teaching positions are vacant or filled by under-certified staff. Teachers earn 26.9% less than other college graduates. The voucher money could address the teacher pay crisis. Instead, it funds private tuition for families who were already paying it.
Read more on the Education hub and the voucher accountability brief.