Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne released his department’s $40 million estimate to pay for Arizona’s new English-immersion program — just one day before the Legislature’s court-ordered deadline of March 4 for allocating the funds.  
The amount needed for the program, as proposed by Horne, was dramatically less than the $304 million estimate complied by the Arizona School Administrators Association.  
The budget needs to cover the cost of a state law beginning this fall that will require students having trouble learning English to have four hours of English instruction a day.  
The plan — the English Language Learner Model — must be fully funded by the Legislature unless the state can use federal anti-poverty dollars toward program funding, which would drop Horne’s $40 million estimate down to $19.3 million.  
Horne’s proposed budget has attracted scrutiny from educators. But he defended the estimate, nonetheless.  
He said the problem lies in the program criteria set by the legislative task force, not in his figures. He simply followed the instructions of the task force, cutting out any expenses not specifically outlined in its plan.  
The ASA took a different approach, Horne said. 
“From their standpoint they were underfunded and this was a way to correct that,” he said.    
Greg Wyman, president of the administrators’ group and superintendent of the Apache Junction Unified School District, said the budget set forth by Horne was not precise.  
“We believe that it’s not an accurate number,” he said. “The numbers that we put out are accurate reflections of what the true costs are.”  
The problem, Wyman said, lies in working with a “predetermined set of numbers” that leave some schools without the money they need.
“Without adequate funds, we will not be able to implement the program as designed by the task force.”  
Costs not accounted for in Horne’s budget include additional teachers and aides, additional classroom space and course materials.  
The districts, for instance, asked for money to pay for textbooks, classroom space and teachers. Horne said some of that isn’t necessary. 
“Textbook funding is provided to all districts for all students and should not be considered an incremental cost for educating ELL students,” he said.