Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne has successfully obtained a waiver from the U.S. Department of Education that will return $29 million in federal Title I school improvement funds to the state.
According to the Arizona Department of Education, it is currently analyzing the details of the waiver and will go through the process to ensure all funds are distributed to schools and allocated effectively.
“I am grateful to the Arizona Department of Education staff who worked long hours to ensure this process was completed and that schools get all the funding they deserve,” said Horne.
After an initial Arizona Republic story that reported that the money from the federal government was not used in time and had to be returned to the U.S. Department of Education, Horne was quick to correct the Republic’s attempts to make the error look like it occurred on Horne’s watch. He pointed out that the failure to use the funds on time was actually on his predecessor’s watch, then Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman.
As one might expect, Horne has sent a letter to the News Director of Azcentral.com and The Arizona Republic demanding the retraction of their story falsely blaming his administration for the original reversion of the $29 million.
The letter stated, in part:
“The story is false, and the reporter responsible for writing it dishonestly and, apparently with intent, withheld information given to him in advance of the story that clearly shows the story is false. This is unacceptable and cannot stand.
In an email from our communications director to Nick Sullivan at 9:41 a.m. on Friday, August 2 – three days prior to the story’s publication – your reporter was told, “The reverted funds represent federal school improvement dollars allocated in federal Fiscal Years 2021 and 2022 during the prior department administration. (That means the dollars had to be allocated by July 1, 2022, before I took office.) …
That should have either been the end of the story, or at least placed the responsibility on the administration that was in office at the time these errors were made. Instead, your publication printed a story claiming that my administration caused this problem, which is absolutely false.”
There is no indication yet if the news outlets will cover Horne successfully recovering the money, but given their long-standing animosity towards the long-time Republican officeholder, expectations are low.
