Page 36 - The Edge - Spring 2017

ARIZONA CAPITOL TIMES CONTRIBUTING ARTICLE

By Ben GiLes

Analysts Skeptical About Fiscal Benefits of

Expanded Voucher Program

State taxpayers will see minimal to no savings when students roughly $1,100 per elementary school student and $1,300 per high
transfer from public to private schools under an expanded voucher school student.
program. Legislative analysts say it’s a $800 hit to state coffers when a
In fact, a bill to make vouchers universally accessible to all student switches from public to voucher.
Arizona children will actually increase the cost to the state budget, Lesko vowed to continue pushing the bill, which now needs a
not result in savings as the measure’s chief architect has touted, state vote of the full Senate for approval. A concurrent bill is being run
budget analysts determined. in the House.
Sen. Debbie Lesko, the sponsor of SB1431, wants to gradually “I’m still going to proceed because I believe that parents should
allow more children access to empowerment scholarships, Arizona’s have a choice about where to send their kids to school and not
version of a private school voucher. If the Legislature approves her have the government tell them where to send their child to school,”
bill, all students in Arizona would be eligible for the vouchers in Lesko said February 16.
2020. Lesko has downplayed the impact, arguing that opponents are
Expanding the program to that extent would add $24.5 million in inflating estimates of the amount of students who’ll leave public
expenses to the General Fund by 2020, according to a report by the schools for vouchers.
Joint Legislative Budget Committee. Meanwhile, most taxpayers “I think the opponents are over exaggerating the effect,” Lesko
in school districts that would see lower enrollment as some parents told the Senate Republican Caucus on Feb. 14. “This is really
abandon public schools in favor of vouchers won’t save money, and designed as an additional option. I just don’t see tons of parents
instead would continue to pay the same property tax rate, according leaving their public school. If they were going to do that, we really
to Chuck Essigs, a lobbyist for the have a problem in our public
Arizona Association of School “A lot of times you hear this in terms of schools.”
Business Officials. But even if a minimal percent
Lesko, R-Peoria, has pitched ‘look how much the taxpayers will save’... of eligible students opt for
her bill in interviews and to her vouchers, the state will see its
fellow Republican senators as a That’s quite misleading.” expenses increase by millions of
savings to the taxpayer of roughly — Chuck Essigs, a lobbyist for the dollars.
$4,300 per year per student. Arizona Association of School Business Officials SB1431 phases in eligibility
The claimed savings was the for vouchers by increasing a cap
top talking point in a memo she on enrollment by 5,500 a year for
distributed to the Senate’s GOP Caucus on Feb. 14. three years, before enrollment becomes limitless in 2020.
But the reality of the state’s funding formulas for K-12 students In the first year of enrollment, assuming that 1 percent of 285,000
says otherwise, according to Essigs. eligible public school students enroll in the voucher program, the
“A lot of times you hear this in terms of ‘look how much the state will see its expenses increase by $1.5 million, according to the
taxpayers will save’... That’s quite misleading,” Essigs said during a JLBC report. By fiscal year 2021, when an estimated 2.6 percent
briefing on the impact of vouchers on Feb. 15. of 975,600 students are eligible for vouchers, the hit to the state
That’s because the state, not local school districts, control the General Fund rises to $13.9 million.
rate at which property in Arizona is taxed to fund education, JLBC analysts also calculated the impact of new kindergarten
Essigs said, and student enrollment has nothing to do with how students, some from families that would have enrolled their
that rate is adjusted. That means taxpayers in school districts that children in private school regardless of the voucher program, now
lose traditional public school students to vouchers won’t see lower utilizing an ESA. By 2020, the cost of funding those students would
property tax bills. rise to $10.6 million, analysts found.
At the state level, multiple reports confirm that it costs the state Lesko said that JLBC only analyzed one pot of money that
General Fund more, not less, to educate a student on a private finances schools – the state General Fund. Taxpayers will realize
school voucher than in a public school. savings, she said, through reductions in spending in local districts
An analysis by school business officials at AASBO and the
Arizona School Boards Association calculates the difference at
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36 THE EDGE | SPRING 2017