School-choice advocate to retire from Legislature
State Sen. Eddie Farnsworth, who’s served 17 years as a state lawmaker, plans to retire from the Arizona Legislature next year.
Farnsworth announced his plan to not seek reelection after the 2020 session on Thursday at a meeting of Legislative District 12 Republicans, according to an audio recording provided to The Arizona Republic.
Farnsworth, a Gilbert Republican and school-choice advocate who made nearly $14 million last year on the sale of his charter schools, could not be reached for comment.
In addition to supporting charter schools at the Legislature, Farnsworth also repeatedly blocked prison reform legislation.
Farnsworth narrowly won his 2018 Republican primary race against Jimmy Lindblom, but easily coasted to a general election victory in the red East Valley district.
Lindblom on Friday said he had considerable support from those who wanted change, and he’s been encouraged to run for what will be an open seat, but hasn’t made a decision.
“I’ll certainly weigh the options,” he said. “I had laid out a vision and plan for the good things I hoped we could accomplish at the Legislature, those issues are still important to me. I will determine the best ways to accomplish those, it may or may not be as a candidate.”
Shortly after defeating Lindblom, Farnsworth sold his Benjamin Franklin charter school chain to a non-profit company he had created with board members who were lobbyists and successfully obtained votes for their clients from the lawmaker.
Farnsworth will pocket $13.9 million from the $56.9 million sale of the schools he owned for decades.
Records show he will loan Benjamin Franklin $2.8 million over seven years, earning himself $478,000 in interest while ensuring the schools have enough cash to keep operating. He’ll collect another $79,600 a year in rent on the building that currently serves as Benjamin Franklin’s corporate headquarters in Gilbert.
Farnsworth will also continue to be paid as a consultant to Benjamin Franklin.
“Charter schools have been lucrative to me because I’ve done what every other business has done to make money: I had an idea. I put the business plan into place. I followed every law and every contract. I provided a product that is a good product that people wanted,” Farnsworth said in an interview last year.
The Republic, as part of an extensive investigation into Arizona charter schools, found Farnsworth was among a handful of operators who had became millionaires, thanks to Arizona’s light regulation and minimal oversight. Farnsworth has voted at least a dozen times for state budgets that increased charter additional assistance funding, which provides more in per student dollars than traditional public schools. As of 2018, charter schools on average received $1,286 more in state per student funding than district schools.
Arizona has roughly 17% of its 1.1 million students in charter schools, which cannot access local property taxes like school districts. That’s the largest percentage of any of the 45 states with charter schools.
Have a tip on charter schools or other investigative stories? Reach the reporter at craig.harris@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8478 or on Twitter @charrisazrep. Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.