Superintendent Tom Horne on Arizona’s educational funding

Tens of millions of dollars of funding, that could have been used for students who need a little more help, could be headed back to the federal government.

These funds are given to schools where students underperform and need additional assistance. The money typically goes toward helping staff with professional development, leadership training, some supplies, curriculum and more.

Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne’s office said sending this money back will affect around 150 schools across Arizona. But Horne said the U.S. Department of Education (ED) has offered a waiver that would potentially recover $29 million in federal funding that had gone unused in prior years.

“We’ve applied for a waiver to get the money back. We cannot spend money unless it is properly allocated under federal rules. The deadline to allocate, for when we took office, was July 1, 2022, when our predecessor was in office. They missed the deadline,” Horne said.

The money can return to Arizona with this waiver though. Horne says that waiver has already been submitted.

Superintendent Horne said ED reached out to encourage his department to apply for a Tydings waiver, which would allow excess Title 1 funds that had been accrued to be utilized because they weren’t allocated starting in the federal fiscal year 2020.

Horne also discussed the recent school shooting in Georgia and the prevention steps needed to keep those in schools safe.

“I’ve been extremely active on that, urging the schools to have school resource officers, policemen that are located in the schools. We pay for it and every school that asks for it we give it to them. For the schools that don’t have it, it’s their own fault,” Horne said.

Horne said he wants the overall school safety funding, which includes school resource officers and school counselors, to be increased.