By Stacy Mantle
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Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program has surpassed 101,000 enrolled students for the first time, while thousands more applications await review, according to an email sent to ESA families Thursday by the Arizona Department of Education.

The milestone marks the highest enrollment in the program’s 15-year history and comes as the department warns that staffing and administrative funding have not kept pace with the program’s growth.

More than 6,400 new applications are awaiting review by the ESA enrollment team, according to the Aug. 6 email from ESA Executive Director John Ward. If all were approved and current participation remained stable, enrollment could exceed 107,000 students.

The program has expanded dramatically since Arizona made ESA eligibility nearly universal beginning in the 2022-23 school year. The accounts allow participating families to use state education dollars for approved educational expenses, including private school tuition, tutoring, curriculum, online instruction and other educational services. Students generally cannot receive ESA funding while attending a district or charter school full time.

ADE estimates approximately $1.1 billion in ESA scholarship awards will be distributed during fiscal year 2027, according to Ward.

However, Ward said only 35 employees are available to administer the program, handling responsibilities that include enrollment, purchase reviews, compliance and customer service.

“The ESA team is working as hard as it can on your behalf, and we are continuously exploring feasible solutions to help mitigate the effects of these resource challenges,” Ward wrote.

Families face customer service delays

The effects of limited staffing are particularly visible in customer service, according to ADE.

Ward said just six customer service agents are assigned to the ESA phone lines. He said families have encountered difficulty reaching staff by phone and delays in receiving responses to emails and help-desk tickets.

Ward said those delays should not be attributed to inattentive employees.

ADE has been raising concerns about ESA staffing for months.

In June, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne called on Gov. Katie Hobbs and state lawmakers to increase staffing for the program, saying staffing levels were established when ESA enrollment was approximately 11,000 students.

At the time, Horne said eight employees were responsible for reviewing more than 2 million orders annually — the equivalent of about 250,000 orders per employee.

Arizona law allows ADE to use risk-based auditing rather than individually reviewing every lower-dollar purchase before payment. Horne said purchases above $2,000 are reviewed before payment, while purchases of $2,000 or less are subject to risk-based auditing.

Administrative funding becomes part of ESA debate

Ward said the ESA program’s operating funding for fiscal year 2027 is lower than it was four years ago, when universal eligibility began.

Ward said administrative funding equals approximately 0.4% of the scholarship dollars distributed through Arizona’s program, compared with administrative funding of 2% to 10% in ESA programs in other states.

ADE has repeatedly requested additional resources, but Ward said the fiscal year 2027 state budget did not provide additional operating funding for the program.

The department’s warning highlights a distinction in the broader debate over the cost of Arizona’s ESA program: The money distributed to families and the money available to ADE to administer and oversee those accounts are separate issues.

As enrollment and spending increase, ADE must process more applications, purchases and reimbursement requests while also monitoring whether ESA dollars are spent on allowable educational expenses.

The latest enrollment numbers are likely to intensify the debate over whether Arizona has provided enough administrative resources to oversee a program serving more than 101,000 students and distributing approximately $1.1 billion in scholarship awards.

With another 6,400 applications awaiting review, pressure on the system could continue to grow during the 2026-27 school year.

Editor’s note:  A grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation made this story possible. The foundation awarded 15 newsrooms to pay for solutions-focused education reporters for two years. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.

Stacy Mantle
Education Solutions Reporter

smantle@iniusa.org

Meet Stacy
Stacy Mantle is joining the team at Independent Newsmedia, Inc. as an Education Solutions journalist, thanks to a grant from the Arizona Community Collaborative. She has a long history in education that ranges from teaching junior high and middle school to developing curriculum and standards-based assessments.

Community: A longtime advocate for animal welfare, Stacy is deeply involved in rescue efforts and volunteers with several nonprofit organizations.

Random Fact: Once upon a time, she shared her home with a pet coyote and two wolf hybrids. The experiences were wild enough to become the subject of her first book!

Education: She holds a BA in English with a minor in Political Science, a Post-baccalaureate in Secondary Education, and an MBA with a emphasis on Marketing.

Hobbies: In her spare time, Stacy writes fast-paced urban fantasy novels, crafts small-batch artisan soap, and is always up for hiking or off-roading through the Arizona wilderness with her husband of 23 years.