Gov. Katie Hobbs’ Office said Thursday that the Arizona Department of Education is three weeks late on a deadline to turn in a report on the state’s school voucher program, but the department says there is good reason for the delay.
Hobbs’ budget chief Sarah Brown sent a letter to Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne asking that he deliver a quarterly report on the voucher program that was due on Nov. 30. That report will include data like the number of enrolled students and program costs.
Hobbs, a Democrat, has called on lawmakers to roll back the voucher program that was expanded under her predecessor, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey.
Hobbs’ office accused Horne, a vocal voucher supporter, of a lack of transparency, but the superintendent issued a statement saying the department has been in contact with the governor’s office for weeks about the delay.
Horne said that a quarterly report already submitted to the state Board of Education includes much of the same information that will be included in the report submitted to the governor.
But an ADE spokesman says the department also found out late about some additional data that must be included in the report under state law. He says the department’s IT staff is in the process of compiling that data, which led to the delay.
