Key Higley USD budget getting $7M increase for coming year
Posted
Tom Blodgett
Higley USD’s maintenance and operations budget will go up more than $7.4 million for fiscal year 2022-23 from the district’s latest revised budget for this year.
The district’s governing board gave unanimous preliminary approval to that $116.92 million budget, which pays for day-to-day operations and most district salaries, at its June 8 meeting.
The board previously gave preliminary approval to a $26.64 million capital budget in April. Both budgets will go for final approval at the board’s June 22 meeting.
District Chief Financial Officer Tyler Moore noted the district was having to estimate what the state funding would look like as the Arizona Legislature has yet to pass a state budget. He said the district was budgeting off an assumption of no growth in average daily membership, an enrollment-related metric that is a key component in the state’s funding formula for school districts.
The district’s estimated average teacher salary for the coming year is $65,717, an increase of 6% from this year.
Moore said the district had adjusted the average by stripping away some supplemental pay the district considered inappropriate to consider as part of the average pay.
The adjustment explained why the district’s increase on what it shows as average pay was only 6% when the district is giving 7% raises across the board for the coming year.
District initiatives
After reviewing accomplishments from this school year, Superintendent Dawn Foley presented to the board the district’s focus areas for the coming year. Foley said the focus areas are each aligned to the pillars of the district’s recently adopted strategic plan.
Foley presented five focus area for the coming year:
defining HUSD pre-K-12 opportunities for our students that align to the HUSD “Portrait of a Graduate”;
working on building the district support for systemic resources for social-emotional support and positive student behaviors;
supporting employees through meaningful feedback and interactions to build the culture where employees feel valued;
developing a district marketing plan that will help enhance relationships within the community; and
ensuring that district policies and procedures are documented, reviewed and implemented with consistency.
Foley gave examples of what would constitute progress on each of the areas.
Other items
The governing board awarded Foley a 6% bonus on her base salary for performance pay.
Sossaman Middle School Principal Dan Fox was appointed as the new principal at Williams Field High School, where Fox previously had been an assistant principal.
A district committee found the district’s student code of conduct was still relevant but needed more consistency in application. The district has plans to develop a handbook that it would then embed the code of conduct into, rather than have the code serve as the handbook, officials said.
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