May 25, 2005

By Arthur H. Rotstein

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/76841.php

Students living in Mexico have been regularly crossing the border to attend school in a remote southern Arizona community, a misuse of taxpayer funds, the state's top education official said Wednesday.

State schools Superintendent Tom Horne said an investigator he sent to the port of entry in Lukeville videotaped students walking across the border to a bus stop 200 yards north, then taking school buses to the community of Ajo. A Lukeville trailer park employee also told the investigator that utility receipts issued as proof of residence were provided by the trailer park, and not a real utility, Horne said. The investigator found that addresses listed on the utility receipts at the trailer park had no homes at those locations. Horne said he undertook the investigation after stories appeared in The Arizona Republic and after the Arizona attorney general's office said it would not investigate because there was no allegation of a crime. "The allegation is that taxpayer funds were being misused," said Horne.