{"id":424,"date":"2026-05-16T17:03:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T17:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=424"},"modified":"2026-05-16T17:03:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T17:03:41","slug":"arizona-mom-who-used-esa-vouchers-now-campaigns-to-reform-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=424","title":{"rendered":"Arizona mom who used ESA vouchers now campaigns to reform program"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<section>\n<p><b>PHOENIX (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 An Arizona mother who used the state\u2019s school voucher program to help her autistic son is now working to place restrictions on it.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=422\">Arizona ranks top-10 nationally for scam losses as cybercrimes cost billions<\/a><\/p>\n<p>More than 100,000 students are enrolled in Arizona\u2019s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program, costing taxpayers $1 billion a year.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were able to use the ESAs for his therapies to hire tutors,\u201d Boltz said.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>But Boltz said the program\u2019s mission changed after the Legislature opened ESA to every child in Arizona about four years ago.<\/p>\n<h2>Reports of luxury purchases with taxpayer funds<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cWell, I\u2019m a taxpayer too, and I\u2019m not happy about the crazy purchases that are happening,\u201d Boltz said.<\/p>\n<p>Reports started appearing of high-end purchases with ESA funds, including expensive jewelry, vacations and motor vehicles.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=420\">Troopers intervene in human trafficking attempt in northern Arizona<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Arizona Superintendent Tom Horne defended the program, saying the questionable purchases represent \u201cless than 2% of the dollar value, and a lot of those are innocent mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Republicans in the Legislature have refused to make changes to the program.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The campaign has until July 2 to gather nearly 260,000 signatures. As of now, they have about 150,000.<\/p>\n<p><i>See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? <\/i><i>Please click here to report it<\/i><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send <\/i><i>it to us here<\/i><i> with a brief description.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=418\">3 critically hurt in multi-car crash near Lake Pleasant<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A mother said the program\u2019s mission changed after the Legislature opened ESA to every kid in Arizona about four years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Arizona mom who used ESA vouchers now campaigns to reform program - Tucson Moving Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=424\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Arizona mom who used ESA vouchers now campaigns to reform program - 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