MJP –
After failing to spend roughly $29 million by the due date, Arizona’s low-achieving K-12 schools were required to return the funds to the federal government.
A portion of the school improvement funding from 2021 and 2022 had to be returned to the state Department of Education, according to the Arizona Republic. This was because schools were not able to obligate or allocate all of the funds by the September 2023 deadline.
Now that the money has gone missing, Republican and Democratic politicians are throwing fingers at one other.
Republican state superintendent Tom Horne was singled out by Democratic governor Katie Hobbs for failing to assist schools in meeting the commitment deadline.
Hobbs said that it is unacceptable that struggling pupils are not receiving extra help since the school has “just, like, forfeited” the money.
A possible investigation into what happened is being considered by the governor’s office, which is “looking at options right now,” although she did not specify which department would be responsible for conducting the probe.
However, Horne has stated that he is innocent.
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“An employee of my predecessor made a mistake before I took office, and the districts were not notified of correct allocations in time for them to appropriately plan and spend the money,” Horne stated. “This individual misrepresented to the schools their actual allotment amounts. We were on the phone all the time pleading with districts to be frugal with the funds.
An attempt to get in touch with that individual for comment was unsuccessful. They are currently employed with the Pima County School Superintendent’s Office.
The responsibility was placed on previous Democratic Superintendent Kathy Hoffman by Horne’s administration. Hoffman resigned in January 2023 following her defeat by Horne in the 2022 election. When Hoffman was still in office (in July 2022), Horne’s administration said that the money in question had to be allocated to individual schools.
According to the spokesperson, the former Hoffman employee who worked under Horne for a short time did not inform their supervisors of the upcoming deadline before she left the office in March 2023.
After the September deadline had gone, Horne’s agency failed to acknowledge the matter for nearly a year.
According to the Republic, the Arizona Charter Schools Association was informed by Michelle Udall, who was an associate superintendent under Horne, that the agency was unaware that the funds had lapsed until March 2024.
The former Democratic superintendent, Hoffman, blamed Horne for that.
They were responsible for figuring out all the grant financing as they chose to bring in their leadership. That’s all Hoffman had to say to the Republic.
On Tuesday, the narrative took a turn when Horne wrote to the Republic, accusing it of withholding important departmental information, and requesting that it retract the piece.
