PHOENIX — Nick Mansour, Arizona’s first Democrat elected state treasurer in 60 years, says he will start investing the state’s endowment for education and rein in the ESA school voucher program.
Mansour, the former chairman and CEO of the Arizona College of Nursing, told ABC15 the state’s $11 billion education endowment fund is his top priority.
“We're not investing it well today,” he said. “I want to change how we're investing that to make sure we're earning an appropriate amount of money on it.”
The fund is one way the state pays for education without tapping taxpayer dollars.
“This is a huge, huge benefit for our current students and for future students, and we are literally losing out on billions of dollars right now,” Mansour said.
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Arizona’s treasurer invests the state’s money – about $32 billion today. Mansour said he’s putting together his transition team and meeting with people in advance of taking office in January.
“There are some things that I want to do that will do need the Legislature and the governor to pass a law, so we're beginning to work on that," he said.
Democrats swept the statewide offices in this year’s election and flipped the Legislature. But Mansour said he aims to keep partisan politics out of the office.
“You know, everyone's against waste,” he said. “I would hope everyone would want us to invest our money wisely.”
Mansour described his ideas as “common sense.”
“I don't think they're left or right,” he said.
Mansour said he also plans to work with the state’s newly elected superintendent of instruction, Teresa Leyba Ruiz, to go after waste in the Empowerment Scholarship Account program.
“We're paying for flat-screen TVs and kitchen appliances, jewelry,” he said. “We need to eliminate that.”
But he emphasized that he supports ESAs, saying he’s spoken with ESA parents who homeschool their children and are worried waste puts the entire system at risk. Changes, he said, are needed for the long-term health of ESAs.
“We want to get rid of the waste, and honestly, that will make everybody probably feel better about the program, so that it can continue to support the families that really need it,” he said.
Mansour, a third-generation Arizonan who’s never run for office before, said he’s trying to give back to Arizona.
“At the end of the day, I'm doing this for our state, and I'm doing this whether it's for the people that elected me, but also for the people that didn't elect me,” he said.
