Arizona voters may get chance to approve how much school districts spend in classrooms

By Howard Fischer
Mail | X: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX — Arizona voters could decide in November if they want more of the money allocated for K-12 education to be spent on teacher pay.

On a party-line vote, the Senate agreed to put a measure on the November ballot to require that 60 cents of every dollar spent by the bigger school districts in the state’s two most populous counties to be spent on “direct instructional expenses.” That is designed to mean the salaries of those who are in the classroom.

What makes that figure significant is the Auditor General’s Office reported last month that, on average, just 52.1 cents of every dollar end up in what is classified as instruction.

That compares with 52.6 cents the prior year. It is the lowest figure in the two decades that there has been such a report.

“This lets voters tell those districts, ‘No, no, no, we want our children to have a funded classroom. We want our children to get a well-paid teacher who is highly qualified to teach those kids,’” said Sen. Jake Hoffman, the Queen Creek Republican who is the sponsor of SCR 1032.

But Senate Minority Leader Priya Sundareshan argued what’s missing from the discussion is that there are not enough state dollars to pay not only more to teachers but also to fund everything else that schools are required to do.

The Tucson Democrat pointed out a judge earlier this year concluded lawmakers are not meeting their constitutional obligation to fund things like building construction and repairs as well as other expenses ranging from desks to computers. And he gave them until November to fix the problem.

“We have underfunded the school facilities needs of our district schools,” Sundareshan said. And that, she said, is forcing schools to use the dollars they do get — including for teacher salaries — for those other needs.

But she said rather than comply with the ruling and provide what the court has said is legally required funding, Republican legislative leaders have decided to file an appeal.

“So, yes, it is absolutely the Legislature and its Republican leaders that have chosen to underfund district schools,” Sundareshan said.

“Doing something like this that sets the arbitrary spending amounts will not solve the problem,” she said. “Funding the schools will.”

Hoffman claimed there is administrative “bloat.”

On one hand, the report from the Auditor General’s Office showed that, overall, Arizona schools spend a smaller percentage of each dollar on administration than the rest of the country.

What’s also true, however, is that while year-over-year classroom spending in Arizona is up 0.5%, administrative spending increased by 2.7%.

But this isn’t just about administrative costs which cover everything from superintendents and principals to staff to handle clerical and purchasing services.

Sen. Lauren Kuby said what’s missing from the debate — and from the category of classroom spending that Hoffman wants to take to 60% are things that are necessary for students to learn and things that schools are legally required to provide. That includes counselors, audiologists and nurses.

That formula, said the Tempe Democrat, also ignores the high costs of teaching students with special needs.

In fact, the Auditor General’s report stated while the overall number of students in public schools is declining, the number of students receiving special education services has increased, particularly for autism. That, the report stated, can cause an increase the category of instructional support — something that doesn’t count toward that 60% goal for instruction — because it includes those counselors, audiologists, speech pathologists, nurses and social workers.

The Senate vote is not the last word as the House has yet to act on a similar measure being pushed by Rep. Matt Gress.

There also are some differences between the plans.

Most notably, what the Senate approved would apply only to public schools in the state’s two largest counties — and only to school districts of at least 7,500 students within those counties.

That change came after Mark Barnes, representing the Rural Arizona School Coalition, told lawmakers that small, rural districts, with certain fixed expenses like fuel costs and insurance, would have trouble ever reaching that 60% goal.

By contrast, the Gress proposal applies to any district with at least 200 students.

Whatever become the final plan is not subject to review by Gov. Katie Hobbs but instead would go directly to voters in November.

Much of the debate over either plan is whether there should be, as Hoffman wants, a state law that dictates to schools how much of each dollar they get needs to go into classrooms.

Sen. Mitzi Epstein pointed out each school district has its own locally elected governing board. And the Tempe Democrat said it is those board members who get to look at not just the issues in that district but what their residents want.

“As a school board member, I have spent years listening to the people talk about what they want their district to do,” she said. “And this bill comes in and says, ‘Wham, bam, you can’t do it because this senator wants you to do something else.’”

Hoffman countered that he’s not imposing anything on anyone. He said all his measure would do is send the question — and the 60% requirement — to voters in November who would get the last word.

That last word, however, would be on a statewide basis, with no opportunity for a local school district or board to opt out if the measure is approved.

Part of the debate — and question of the need for state intervention — is where has the money gone.

In 2000 voters approved a 0.6-cent hike in the state sales tax, to 5.6%, with the measure saying the additional cash was to target teacher salary increases, performance pay, and classroom improvements. Originally supposed to last 20 years, that “classroom site fund” was extended in 2018 to run through 2041.

A separate measure approved by the Legislature in 2018 set up a system to raise teacher pay by 20% over a four-year period through 2021.

But the Auditor General found the average increase was less than that.

In both cases, Hoffman said, many districts found ways to use the extra funds to supplant what they already were paying the teachers, allowing the districts to divert the dollars for other priorities. That, he said, goes against what voters want.

“They want teachers who are actually compensated and given classroom supply budgets,” he said.

“They want teachers who are supported so that they can focus on delivering a world-class education,” Hoffman continued. “And what we’ve seen is districts have instead prioritized grant writers, they’ve prioritized district office staff, they have prioritized everything else, all of the bloat in the administrative side of education.”

The legislation directs schools that are below the 60% figure to raise what they are spending by half a percentage point each year until they get to the target.

Those that do not would run the risk of losing part or all of those classroom site funds, though there are provisions to allow the state schools chief to issue any district up to two waivers in any 10-year period.

All of this comes amid a separate debate about renewal of Proposition 123. Approved by voters in 2015, it raised more than $300 million a year by tapping into a special trust account for education — money raised from the sale or lease of the nearly 10 million acres of land Arizona was given by the federal government when it became a state in 1912.

That authorization expired last year. Now the debate is whether to ask voters to renew it in some form.

Part of that fight is tied up with unrelated issues, like a demand by some Republicans that it be linked to putting a provision in the Arizona Constitution guaranteeing the right of parents to get vouchers of state funds to send their children to private or parochial schools or to homeschool them. While that is current law, without a constitutional amendment it remains subject to change by a future legislature.

But there’s a separate fight over how to allocate the funds.

The Republican plan would earmark all the dollars to classroom teachers, enough, they say, to provide $4,000 raises.

Hobbs, however, wants to use only part of that to educator compensation, with the rest of the money for support staff, general school funding, and investing in safety and security improvements.

Negotiations on that have stalled along with parallel talks about adopting a new state budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.