What the law requires
- Pay actual reasonable costs first (Health Services, Revenue, courts, DPS, Treasurer).
- Send the leftover, twice a year, to those five destinations.
- Do not transfer this fund to any other account except as that section allows.
Not the $177 billion checkbook · three dedicated funds
Three marijuana funds. The leftover split is still an open question.
The law names who gets leftover marijuana-tax money after state costs. These books show spending, not proof of the required split. Only the medical fund has an auditor’s “misallocated” finding — for 2019, not these invoices.
Full introduction and scope
Voters named who should get the leftover. These books mostly show the state spending first.
Adult-use marijuana tax sits in Smart and Safe. After actual reasonable state costs, leftover money is supposed to go to community colleges, police and fire, the highway fund, Justice Reinvestment, and a sliver to the Attorney General. Justice Reinvestment then splits again. A third, older fund — medical marijuana — is the only one an auditor has already called misallocated, and that finding is from 2019, not from these invoices.
How to read the evidence
How to read a gapBlank payees are common. They are not proof of theft. They are not proof the split happened either.
If leftover money moved to the right funds without a public payee, that is often how Arizona posts a transfer. If leftover money stayed in administration, or moved somewhere the statute does not allow, that would be out of step with the law. These rows cannot tell you which. They tell you a resident cannot check the split from this page.
Civic instrument
Read the fine print
01 / Smart and Safe Arizona Fund · § 36-2856
$11.7 million left with no payee name.
The Treasurer runs this fund. Twice a year the leftover, after actual reasonable state costs, must go out in fixed shares: 33% to community colleges, 31.4% to police, fire, and sheriffs for personnel costs, 25.4% to the highway fund, 10% to Justice Reinvestment, 0.2% to the Attorney General. The statute also says money in this fund may not move anywhere else.
What this page can show
- $11.7 million in Treasurer “operating transfers out,” payee N/A, 60 rows.
- No community college, police department, or highway fund as a payee on this fund.
- $9.6 million at Health Services coded as admin, including software and lawyers.
- $22,085,038.86All agencies, signed expenditures, FY2025.
- $11,673,738.16State Treasurer, operating transfers out, payee N/A, 60 rows. Same dollars as the “Smart and Safe AZ Act” appropriation. The row does not name a college, a police department, or the highway fund.
- $9,562,632.41Health Services, “admin costs, Smart & Safe / justice reinvestment.”
- $2,860,838.28Of that Health Services cash: software support, net.
- $1,252,139.24Of that Health Services cash: Taft and Sherman & Howard, legal services. The ledger does not name the matter.
- $4,294,150.60Personnel on this fund, all agencies. Payroll often posts as N/A. That is a posting habit, not a hidden vendor.
- Did colleges, police, and highways get their share?
- This fund’s payee list cannot answer that. An unnamed transfer can be the lawful way leftover money leaves. It can also be money that never arrived where § 36-2856(D) points. You would need the receiving funds and the Treasurer’s remainder worksheets to know.
- Could this spending be out of step with the statute?
- Yes, in two ways that these rows do not prove. If “admin” is larger than actual reasonable costs, the leftover would be too small. If the unnamed transfers did not land in the five statutory accounts, that would violate the no-other-transfers rule. Both are open questions. Neither is a theft charge.
Three years of cash on this fund, FY2023–25, is $64,590,260.45. That total is not the leftover split either.
Civic instrument
Read the fine print
02 / Justice Reinvestment Fund · § 36-2863
The 35 / 35 / 30 split is not a column in these books.
Ten percent of leftover Smart and Safe money is supposed to land here. Administration comes off the top again. Then the Treasurer must send the rest 35% to county public health, 35% to Health Services for nonprofit grants, and 30% to Health Services for important public health issues. Grantees must file an annual report on how they used the money. Those reports are not in this extract.
Open question, not a verdict. If counties received 35% of the leftover, it does not show as a county-by-county worksheet here. If nonprofit grants are 15.6% of Health Services cash, that is not proof they are 35% of the statutory leftover — the leftover amount is not on this page. Missing annual use reports are a compliance problem if they were never filed. They are not proof the grants were illegal. The statute is broad, and grants skip ordinary procurement. The named payees and the reports to ask for →
About $10 million was announced through a private fiscal agent. Vitalyst Health Foundation itself is $46,834 on this ledger. Downstream awards do not have to appear as state payees. The checkbook can look empty while money moves one layer down. That visibility hole.
03 / Medical Marijuana Fund · Prop 203
An auditor used “misallocated” for 2019. That word does not apply to these 2025 invoices.
Report 19-107 (June 2019) found the Department of Health Services did not timely, consistently, or adequately perform several medical-marijuana regulatory activities, and misallocated some Medical Marijuana Fund monies. A 36-month follow-up came out in June 2022. This checkbook is not that follow-up. It does not attach a questioned-cost dollar to those findings.
FY2025 cash is a different window: $10,671,313.25. It is mostly the department running the program. Treating 2025 software and legal bills as a reprint of the 2019 finding would be the wrong year and the wrong claim.
- $4,336,827.81Aid to organizations and individuals.
- $2,064,151.43Software and related operating IT, net.
- $956,173.82Outside counsel, Taft and Sherman & Howard. Matter not on the row.
- $1,694,815.70Payroll and benefits. Payee N/A, which is how salaries post.
- $1,028,130.03Transfers out, net.
Prop 207 lines are also booked on this older fund — grant distribution, public-health transfers, nonprofit orgs. Those are not a second Smart and Safe. They are distributions sitting on the medical fund’s name. Do not add this $10.67 million to the Smart and Safe $22.09 million and call it one program.
Sources
The originals, and what they are not.
- § 36-2856 — Smart and Safe disposition. § 36-2863 — Justice Reinvestment remainder and the annual use report.
- This warehouse, exact fund names, signed cash expenditures. Smart and Safe and Medical Marijuana composition is FY2025. Justice Reinvestment Health Services figures are FY2022–25. JRF aggregate JSON.
- Auditor General 19-107 and the June 2022 follow-up. FY2019 regulation and fund allocation. Not the FY2025 invoices.
- Official expenditures landing page, not a search deep link: openbooks.az.gov/expenditures.
Cash on a fund is a fact. A statutory percentage the row does not show is a gap. An auditor’s “misallocated” is a finding for the year that used it. None of those is a criminal charge. Whether leftover tax reached colleges, police, highways, counties, and grantees is still for the Treasurer’s worksheets, the receiving funds, and — if anyone takes it up — auditors and courts.