Latest
State leaders misled public about scope of Medicaid fraud crisis
State leaders have admitted that fraudulent billing extended beyond a small portion of the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, contradicting previous assertions that fraud only impacted a small share of the agency. The revelations came to light after AZCIR pressed AHCCCS about its waiver of key provider screenings during the pandemic, ultimately affecting the agency’s entire provider ecosystem, not just those highlighted as the epicenter of the scandal.
Arizona bill aims to reclaim social equity licenses from investors, corporate marijuana dispensaries
Arizona lawmakers have proposed a bill to return social equity licenses to their original owners, alleging private investors and cannabis corporations used predatory tactics to seize control of nearly all the lucrative marijuana dispensary licenses.
Arizona could become latest state to ban attendance-related suspensions
An Arizona lawmaker is again trying to bar schools from using out-of-school suspensions to punish students who miss class, arguing the strategy is not only ineffective but harmful. House Bill 2218 is Rep. Laura Terech’s second attempt to ban the practice of suspending Arizona students for tardiness and truancy, after a 2022 investigation by AZCIR and The Hechinger Report revealed the scope of the contentious disciplinary tactic in district and charter schools.
AHCCCS alerted to ‘predictable’ homelessness surge before fraud crackdown
The embattled state agency at the center of Arizona’s ongoing behavioral health crisis knew its proposed billing reforms could trigger a surge in homelessness nearly a year before implementing the changes, yet failed to prepare accordingly. Though AHCCCS claims it worked to connect victims with ‘reputable’ housing, it arranged for just three facilities—all in the Phoenix area—to meet overwhelming statewide need.
RECENT
Whispers of groundwater regulations spur surges of deeper, higher-capacity wells
Arizona farmers and water experts worry that further delay in groundwater legislation will allow larger, often corporate-backed farms to continue expanding their share of groundwater before future regulation takes effect. By applying for new wells that go deeper, often with higher capacity pumps, those with the financial resources to drill them can extract so much…
GOP-led push to fund police over counselors leaves some schools ‘in the lurch’
Strings attached to Arizona School Safety Program dollars are leaving school counselor and social worker positions unfunded throughout the state, as Republican leaders prioritize boosting campus police instead. The apparent mismatch between what schools need and what certain state leaders want to give them reflects an ongoing clash over which types of positions actually make…
Arizona gave families public money for private schools. Then private schools raised tuition.
Arizona became the first state to offer universal school choice for all families, giving them roughly $7,000 per student to spend on private schools and other nonpublic options. When some private schools in the state hiked their tuition after the law was passed last year, critics worried Arizona’s school choice program risks becoming a subsidy…
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part i — sovereign citizens
‘Sovereign citizen’ filings flood Pima County, parallel national resurgence of controversial movement
Adherents of the sovereign citizen ideology have garnered a reputation for conflict with government officials and members of the public—conflicts that, in some cases, have turned violent. More commonly, they engage in so-called paper terrorism tactics, threatening and harassing people by inundating them with lawsuits and liens.
part ii — radicalization pipeline
part III — “paper terrorism”
IN THE SHERIFF WE TRUST
This project, In the Sheriff We Trust, was produced by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism, in collaboration with the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting. The Howard Center is based at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and is an initiative of the Scripps Howard Fund in honor of the late news industry executive and pioneer Roy W. Howard.
Health
Patients, advocates describe ‘pure chaos’ in state response to AHCCCS fraud
The state’s failure to adequately anticipate the impact of widespread suspensions among behavioral health providers has put members of an already susceptible population at further risk of relapse, abuse, homelessness and even death as operators shut down.
EDUCATION
Proposed bill to ban suspensions for attendance violations falls short
Rep. Laura Terech, a Democrat, crafted a bill in response to an investigation by AZCIR and The Hechinger Report, which revealed for the first time the scope of the controversial disciplinary practice of suspending Arizona students for tardiness and truancy.
‘constitutional sheriffs’
Arizona ‘ground zero’ for extremist, anti-government sheriff movement
More than half of Arizona’s county sheriffs are at least partially aligned with a growing movement of so-called “constitutional sheriffs,” with an ideology that threatens to radicalize law enforcement by indoctrinating them with false legal theories about a sheriff’s authority over state and federal government, and a duty to nullify laws they interpret as unconstitutional. A shift toward amplifying misinformation about widespread voter fraud has experts sounding the alarm.
EDUCATION SUSPENDED: BLOCKED FROM CLASS FROM MISSING CLASS
Suspending students for absences, tardies compounds learning loss
Suspending students for missing class, whether it’s because they showed up late, cut midday or were absent from school entirely, is a controversial tactic. At least 17 states forbid schools from suspending students for attendance problems at some level—if kids aren’t in class, they aren’t learning. Yet the practice is pervasive in Arizona, a first-of-its-kind AZCIR/Hechinger analysis has found, with students missing tens of thousands of additional school days as a result.
The Uncounted
The uncounted: People of color are dying at much higher rates than what COVID data suggests
Unspecific, unknown deaths rose 10 times more among Black, Hispanic and Indigenous people than among white Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new analysis.
Community response helped reverse COVID’s devastating toll on Indigenous communities in Arizona
When COVID-19 first hit the U.S. in early 2020, urban centers like New York City became a focus of national attention. But as the disease spread throughout the U.S. later that spring, the Navajo Nation emerged as a disease hotspot, with case rates rising higher than anywhere else in the country. Newly compiled data reveals…
Elections
State, county policies impact rejected ballot rates in November election
Election officials didn’t count 27,327 ballots cast by Arizona voters in the November election, rejecting more than twice the 10,457 votes that flipped the state for President-elect Joe Biden in what was the closest raw vote margin of any state in the nation. The uncounted votes, which are legally rejected by officials for reasons such…
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Law enforcement
Few Joe Arpaio immigrant victims claim unlawful detention compensation
Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio defied a federal court order by allowing his deputies to nab scores of immigrants. President Donald Trump pardoned him. Now the immigrant victims are eligible for compensation. But where are they?
