State and Local Government Finance

Chandler Unified School District, Arizona’s second‑largest district, has voted to eliminate about 60 administrative, dean and coaching positions after losing more than 4,000 students since 2022, a decline Superintendent Franklin R. Narducci links in part to "competition with charter schools" and the state’s universal school‑choice and ESA voucher programs. At a Wednesday board meeting, district finance chief Lana Berry said enrollment has fallen steadily since the legislature expanded Empowerment Scholarship Accounts statewide in 2022, with the exodus expected to continue as families use roughly $7,000 per child in ESA funds to leave neighborhood schools. Chandler Education Association president Laurel Miller blasted what she called the legislature’s "historical underfunding" of public education and a nearly $3 billion allocation to a "fraud‑ridden" ESA system, arguing that those dollars have "forced districts to make dire decisions like cutting beloved staff and closing community schools." A teacher warned that remaining staff will be stretched to do "the work of three people," and predicted more parents will bolt to charters if services like librarians disappear. The Chandler cuts put a concrete face on a broader national trend: as more red states follow Arizona’s universal school‑choice model, large districts are beginning to shed jobs and reconfigure operations in response to shifting student headcount and per‑pupil funding.

HHS has frozen CCDF child‑care payments nationwide and issued Minnesota a preliminary notice of non‑compliance, giving the state 60 days to turn over attendance, licensing, inspection and payment records (including receipts or photos) or face full penalties, while ACF has an on‑site team and HHS officials say Minnesota failed to respond to prior requests. The move — spurred in part by a viral YouTube video alleging daycare fraud and accompanied by broader federal audits and funding freezes — has escalated criminal probes and political pressure even as state officials say many inspected centers were operating as expected and have launched audits and other corrective steps amid concerns about harm to families and Somali providers.