Horne: Governor’s spokesman recklessly insults state employees with “wasteful” comments

ESA staff focused on serving parents

PHOENIX – State schools chief Tom Horne says recent comments made by Governor Hobbs’ spokesman that Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) staff are a “wasteful bureaucracy” are a reckless insult to state employees who are understaffed, under tremendous pressure and working hard to serve parents who choose the education that is best for their child. 

Horne stated, “The governor’s spokesman has demeaned state employees by calling ESA professionals a ‘wasteful bureaucracy.’ Defining people as waste is a terrible insult. No matter what her personal opposition, the ESA program exists to give parents’ choice when local schools don’t meet their children’s needs, and people are needed to serve those parents. That is not wasteful; it is essential.”

In recent legislative testimony, ESA Director John Ward stated the program distributed $869 million in Fiscal 2025, which is $100 million more than the Department of Education distributes for all federal programs in the state. The Arizona Department of Education has 300 employees to manage federal programs, while ESA has only 40 to handle a larger workload. The ESA program has grown from $100 million to nearly $1 billion and enrollment has expanded from approximately 11,000 accounts in 2011 to more than 90,000 today. Despite this growth, the department has been given no additional staff to handle the workload.

Ward told lawmakers, “We are always in survival mode. Our main responsibility is to get students who want to be in the program into the program, to review their purchases and to provide customer service. That is our core mission, that is what we are focused on.”

Horne added, “In 2025, the Department of Education asked the legislature for 12 additional staff members to handle the immense workload required to operate the program. This was supported in the House version of the budget, but the governor refused to consider it. Doing that while allowing her spokesman to insult state employees who are serving parents is beyond the pale.”