Budget overrides back on the ballot for Southwest Valley schools

By Madeline Ackley Salazar
Mail | Twitter: @Mkayackley

Last November, 30 years of continuous budget overrides in the two Southwest Valley school districts came to an abrupt end when residents voted down override measures that provide Agua Fria Union High School District and Litchfield Elementary School District with close to $10 million annually. 

Now, that measure is back on the ballot and if voted down again, that roughly $10 million in additional funding will start to disappear from district budgets. 

Without that funding, districts warn critical programs could go away including school nurses at each campus, fine arts programs, alternative education and career and technical programs. 

Both districts emphasize that the overrides are not a new tax, but a continuation of the tax already in place for residents of both districts for nearly 30 years. 

At LESD, voters approved a maintenance and operations override of 10% every four years beginning in 1992 until 2013. 

A 15% override was passed in 2017, with the condition that the additional 5% would go toward teacher pay. LESD teachers receive almost $2,000 a year directly from the override as part of their paycheck.

The money won’t be gone all at once, but taper off over time, explains Michael Vaughn, the district’s executive director of finance.

Should the override fail to pass this November, the money from the existing 15% override will diminish by one-third each year until the 2025-2026 school year, when the override dollars would be fully phased-out. 

“If (the override) didn’t pass in November, next year we would be required to cut the budget by an estimated $3.6 million,” Vaughn said. 

But that’s only if voters continue to vote down override measures, according to Vaughn. When override measures fail, school districts have the option to put it back on the ballot the following year. If it were to pass, the voter-approved funding would return in full. 

Tough decisions

Vaughn said that while LESD is aware of how much it would need to cut in the event the override fails, the district is not yet sure exactly what would end up on the cutting room floor. 

"We know what the dollar amount cut would be, but we're still working out what the best way to meet that requirement" should the override fail, Vaughn said. 

"There would just be a lot of tough decisions that the district and the community would have to come together on," he said. 

Meanwhile, districts are still in the process of recovering from learning-loss and falling test scores as a result of pandemic shutdowns. 

Over a dozen Maricopa County school districts had a budget override on the ballot in 2021, five of which failed. Both Litchfield and Agua Fria's override measures failed by about 1,500 votes. 

Preliminary results for this year's general election will be available at 8 p.m. on election day, Nov. 8, on the Maricopa County Elections Department website. 

Madeline Ackley Salazar can be reached at mackley@iniusa.org or found on Twitter @Mkayackley.