Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) give families about $7,500 per student to choose the best education for their children, and 3 in 4 parents support the program. A Legislature-approved risk-based auditing system fixed past delays, allowing families to get resources quickly while still holding bad actors accountable. In fact, an audit found just $622,000 in possible fraud—less than 0.05% of spending—from only 0.4% of account holders. Those funds are already being collected back, and more than 400 accounts have been suspended.
Attorney General Kris Mayes is now trying to dismantle this successful system, demanding a return to the failed manual review process that left families waiting months for textbooks and tutors. Her actions not only punish over 99% of families who use ESAs properly, but they also fail on their own terms. Fraud is already being caught, corrected, and repaid under risk-based auditing.