Cave Creek Unified School District’s governing board approved a rubric during the Feb. 10 board meeting aimed at ways to cut staffing amid declining enrollment rates and an estimated $1 million loss of funding.
The district remains in three high-risk categories for school district financial risk: weighted student counts, capital to maintenance and operations transfers, and spend versus revenue, according to an Arizona Auditor General Report.
The budget decline’s main factor is based on student funding and the difference between the number of graduating students and incoming kindergarteners. While the 2025 graduating class of Cactus Shadows High School held 368 students, the incoming kindergartner class is a total of 163 students.
