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Arizona Auditor General Home Page

We Make a Positive Difference

We help government work better by analyzing governmental operations and recommending improvements. Our fiscal year 2025 results:

239
Reports issued*
 
1,078
Recommendations made
 
$39.01 million
Waste, misuse, and inefficient spending identified
$38.90 million
Fraud and public money losses reported on
 
15
Criminal indictments assisted with

* reports include audits, reviews, investigations, alerts, and followups.

 

What's New

This alert describes how management did not detect unauthorized credit card and purchasing card purchases and outlines actions you can take to help protect public monies and prevent unauthorized purchases...

District did not provide constant student supervision nor consistently control visitor access at its central campuses, potentially putting student safety at risk. It also did not ensure cash collections and...

Pinal County and most of its incorporated cities and towns appropriately used transportation excise tax revenues and demonstrated measurable project impacts. However, the Town of Mammoth lacked the ability to demonstrate that it spent all excise tax monies appropriately.

District incorrectly calculated some employees’ pay and retirement contributions, lacked purchasing controls to reduce the potential for unauthorized fuel card transactions, failed to maintain its school buses to ensure safe...

School letter grade system developed by the Arizona Department of Education and approved by the Arizona State Board of Education obscures key performance differences between schools and does not include statutorily required information about the indicators that make up overall school letter grades, limiting its usefulness in providing public information about schools’ achievement

Featured Reports

COVID-19 Spending Reports

Followup—Arizona school districts’ and charter schools’, and ADE’s discretionary, COVID-19 federal relief spending—through June 30, 2022...

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Arizona Auditor General Special COVID-19 Funding Report, November 2022...

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School District Financial Risk Analysis

As of January 2026, 9 of 207 analyzed Arizona school districts are at the highest financial risk, and 9 are approaching the highest-risk category. This represents an increase from last year’s report when our analysis identified 2 highest-risk school districts and 7 approaching the highest-risk category. 

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School District Spending Analysis

In FY 2025, districts spent nearly $53 million less on instruction than the prior year, and for the third consecutive year, the State-wide instructional spending percentage (ISP) fell to a new low—52.1%. Although the State average teacher salary increased slightly to $65,613, average teacher salaries declined at 95 districts. Additionally, one-third of districts are potentially at higher financial risk because of declining student enrollment and related funding.

View Analysis