State audits uncovered more than $1.8 million in theft and fraud in 2023 and led to nearly three dozen criminal charges.
In a year-end report, the Arizona Auditor General outlined a series of criminal acts that the agency’s investigators discovered during routine audits, including one state worker who allegedly siphoned more than $1.7 million from an education program.
That employee, Tyler Grandil, was the executive secretary who oversaw the Future Farmers of America program for the Arizona Department of Education. He is accused of depositing $1.7 million intended for FFA programs at Arizona schools into a secret checking account and altering invoices to hide his tracks.
Auditors reported that he used much of the money to pay for FFA program expenses that he put on private credit cards, but they also determined that he used the account to issue almost $41,000 worth of checks to pay himself and family members.
Grandil was charged in June 2023 with fraud and computer tampering.