By admin 
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — An Arizona mother who used the state’s school voucher program to help her autistic son is now working to place restrictions on it.
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More than 100,000 students are enrolled in Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program, costing taxpayers $1 billion a year.
Kathy Boltz said her son struggled in public schools for years before he was diagnosed with autism. In 2017, she turned to the ESA program to pay for extra education services.
“We were able to use the ESAs for his therapies to hire tutors,” Boltz said.
At the time, the program was limited to kids with special needs. Boltz said it worked. Her son is now 18 years old and set to graduate high school.
But Boltz said the program’s mission changed after the Legislature opened ESA to every child in Arizona about four years ago.
Reports of luxury purchases with taxpayer funds
“Well, I’m a taxpayer too, and I’m not happy about the crazy purchases that are happening,” Boltz said.
Reports started appearing of high-end purchases with ESA funds, including expensive jewelry, vacations and motor vehicles.
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Arizona Superintendent Tom Horne defended the program, saying the questionable purchases represent “less than 2% of the dollar value, and a lot of those are innocent mistakes.”
Republicans in the Legislature have refused to make changes to the program.
Boltz is now working to place an initiative on the ballot that would add more guardrails to the ESA program and hold parents more accountable. She said she spends four to six hours a week gathering signatures.
The campaign has until July 2 to gather nearly 260,000 signatures. As of now, they have about 150,000.
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