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The total cost of all vouchers may hit $943.8 million in the school year that just started, Hobbs said Tuesday. That is about $319 million more than the budget lawmakers approved and she signed.

But the Democratic governor said the rising cost isn’t a surprise.

She said it has been clear the state pays out up to $800 more for a voucher for a student without special needs than it provides in state aid for the same student in a public school.

That’s just part of the problem, Hobbs said.

The 2022 law provides universal access to vouchers. That means it allows parents who already were using their own money to send their children to private schools or to teach their children at home to now get vouchers of taxpayer dollars.

That has created an average new net cost of $7,223 per student — with perhaps more than 40,000 students shifting the cost of their private education to the state, Hobbs said.

House speaker disputes figures

House Speaker Ben Toma is disputing her figures. The Peoria Republican has been a chief proponent of allowing all parents to get state dollars for private and parochial schools.

He is sticking with an estimate that about 68,000 students will be getting vouchers this year, which would put the price tag at about $624 million.

By contrast, Hobbs estimates total voucher enrollment will top 97,000, which is where she got the $943.8 million estimate.

The governor’s figures are more in line with those of Republican state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne than Toma’s, however.

Horne estimated four weeks ago that there will be about 100,000 students who get vouchers, formally known as “empowerment scholarship accounts.’’ He put the cost of that at $900 million.

Hobbs had no role in creating universal vouchers, having inherited the expanded program when she took office in January.

She called in her State of the State speech in January for a repeal of the expansion; legislative leaders ignored it. Efforts to cap year-over-year increases in enrollment fared no better.

Now Hobbs is using the new estimates in a bid to pressure lawmakers to make changes, such as requiring students to attend public schools before getting a voucher to transfer.

Toma called her figures “baseless.’’ Beyond that, he said the focus should not be on the costs but on the policy.

‘Popular with ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ families’

“It’s clear the ESA program is popular with ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ families and continues to experience growth, a serious frustration for those who oppose school choice,’’ Toma said in a written response. “House Republicans support funding each student according to their need, whether they use their funding at a district, charter or an ESA’’ school.

Toma also maintains the vouchers are a relative bargain.

He said the typical voucher for a student without special needs is about $7,200 a year. By contrast, Toma said the average school district gets more than $13,000 a year per pupil from all sources.

That latter figure, while accurate, is misleading. At the very least, it takes into account not only federal aid but also locally collected taxes.

Looking only at state funds, the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Association of School Business Officials did its own computations. It concluded that a voucher for an elementary school student costs state taxpayers $425 more a year than basic state aid; for high schoolers the figure is $543 more.

Then there’s that entirely new cost to the state of students who already were in private schools at their parents’ expense or being home schooled and not costing taxpayers for their education until now.

Toma told Capitol Media Services that does not concern him.

“Those parents were still paying taxes,’’ he said. “And those grandparents were still paying taxes.’’

He took a dig at Hobbs and Democrats, who have argued for years for more education funding, for now complaining about the expenditure.

“Isn’t it ironic that now, all of a sudden, they seem to have an issue with additional money to K-12 just because it’s not going to the K-12 bucket that they happen to like or prefer,’’ Toma said.

Voucher access was expanded last year

The rapid growth has occurred because, until last year, vouchers were available only to students who met certain conditions. These included having special needs, being foster children, residents of tribal reservations or attending schools rated D or F.

Total enrollment was just shy of 12,000 — far short of any of the current projections.

All those preconditions are now gone, making any of the 1.1 million students in K-12 schools eligible.

In making his own $900 million estimate of voucher costs, Horne sidestepped the question of whether there is enough money in the $17.8 billion state budget to support the increase in the number of private school students now expected to rely on state funds for their education.

“Right now, we’re relying on basic state aid,’’ he said, based on the premise that these students actually were going to public schools until now. “If we conclude that more is needed, we will have to deal with that at the time.’’

At least part of the reason there has been a big influx of applications for vouchers is due to Horne himself.

State lawmakers agreed to set aside $10 million to administer the voucher program. But Horne acknowledged he has been using some of that to advertise the universal vouchers.