Whether it’s the result of falling enrollment or the state opting not to fund new schools, the fact remains there are hundreds of working schools in Arizona that are trying to keep up with the wear and tear of time.
Ensuring schools in poor districts are just as able to maintain their facilities as wealthy districts is a main crux of a lawsuit filed by the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest in 2017 against the state “on behalf of public school districts across the state challenging the state’s failure to adequately fund public schools,” a 2017 press release from the center stated.
The lawsuit argues the state is constitutionally obligated to fund public schools, and they have shirked that responsibility and now maintenance is suffering around the state.
The suit is finally going to court in 2024.
In an interview with the Daily Independent, Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest Executive Director Danny Adelman said there have been some positive, if minor, changes made by the Legislature that have restored some funding, particularly for the Building Renewal Grant fund that provides money to districts so they can maintain schools.
“When we sued, there was only a fraction of the money in the Building Renewal Grant fund that there is now. It still is very insufficient, but it is at least enabling them to do more to help schools that have all these capital problems,” Adelman said. “When we sued, it was in the midst of an 85% cut to the formula. That has been restored. The negative is it is still not indexed to inflation. So, it’s been restored in nominal dollars but in real dollars it’s still only a fraction of what it was 20 years ago."
Part of the issue with state funding, Adelman said, is that districts often have to wait until something breaks or fails until they can get a grant to fix it.
“You’re faced with a leaking roof which causes more damage and is more expensive to fix,” he said. “Those problems still remain, and they would be very solvable if the state would work with us on coming up with a resolution.”
Danielle Airey, chief communications officer at Peoria Unified School District, stated in an email that public school districts “can apply for these monies for repairs and renovations when their buildings have eligible deficiencies. Common examples of (Building Renewal Grant) projects are heating and cooling repairs, water heater replacements and roofing repairs.”
During the past few years, the Peoria Unified School District has qualified for Building Renewal Grant money to pay for weatherization and roof replacements at six of its schools. (Courtesy Peoria Unified School District)
Peoria Unified serves Glendale, Peoria, Surprise and Youngtown.
During the past few years, Peoria Unified has qualified for Building Renewal Grant money to pay for weatherization and roof replacements at six schools, including Centennial and Ironwood high schools, Airey added.
Students FIRST
Almost 30 years ago, the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest filed a lawsuit against the state to force it to follow the Arizona Constitution’s requirement that the Legislature “enact such laws as shall provide for the establishment and maintenance of a general and uniform public school system.”
The center and its plaintiffs reached a settlement with the state in 1998, resulting in the Students Fair and Immediate Resources for Students Today, or Students FIRST, legislation, “to provide annual funding from the state’s general fund to all school districts to address their school facilities’ needs,” according to a 2019 report from the Arizona Center for Economic Progress.
Young Marley Park Elementary School students smile on Aug. 2, the first day of class at the school in Surprise. Full-day Kindergarten is a leading user of override funds in the Dysart Unified School District. (Courtesy Carly McVay/Dysart Schools)
The School Facilities Board was created by the Legislature in 1998 to provide money for facility maintenance as well as fund new school construction. Over the years, however, the funds provided by the board have been depleted by a bad economy and raided by the Legislature looking to fund other priorities. What started off as a program to pay for school maintenance was transformed into a grant that slows the flow of money.
“On Sept. 29, 2021, the School Facilities Division and School Facilities Oversight Board were statutorily established within the Arizona Department of Administration,” stated Megan Rose, assistant director for statewide communications at the Arizona Department of Administration, in an email. “SFD administers grant programs to address building renewal for Arizona school districts. The SFOB provides direction to the SFD for activities involving New School Facilities.”
The Independent examined SFB annual reports from 1999 to 2022 to determine how Building Renewal Grant funding for the board has changed over the years.
For fiscal year 1998-99, the Legislature appropriated $75 million from the state general fund to the Building Renewal Fund. The statute provided a formula in which the main components are the square footage, age and student capacity of the building.
In 2006, a transfer in the amount of more than $130 million was made from the general fund to the Building Renewal Fund, however, $60 million of that was transferred back to the general fund.
Students enjoy recess on the El Mirage Elementary School playground during the first day of school on Aug. 3. (Courtesy Dysart Schools)
In 2009, the Legislature created the Building Renewal Grant Fund and appropriated $20 million for the SFB to administer and distribute to districts for the purpose of maintaining the adequacy of existing facilities. But $13 million was axed so the fund only received $7 million. By making it a grant instead of a program, the SFB prioritizes projects based on “school district routine preventative maintenance and the matching of monies provided by the fund,” according to a SFB annual report.
As the Great Recession set in, the Legislature in 2012 gave the grant fund almost $2.7 million, but later added $11.5 million.
In 2014, the Legislature appropriated almost $16.7 million to the Building Renewal Grant fund.
In 2017, the year the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest filed its latest lawsuit, the Legislature appropriated $31.6 million to the Building Renewal Grant fund.
Starting in fiscal year 2020, the amount of money in the Building Renewal Grant fund began to climb: $107.4 million in fiscal year 2020; $146.2 million in fiscal year 2021; and $200.6 million in fiscal year 2022.
While the numbers will not be finalized until December, Rose stated for fiscal year 2023, the Building Renewal Grant received $289.1 million.
Adelman pointed out that Gov. Katie Hobbs has issued an executive order that sets “minimum adequacy guidelines” that will “judge whether a school is adequate” in terms of meeting maintenance needs.
What this also means, Adelman said, is guidelines of what makes a school adequate will be reassessed, something that hasn’t happened for more than 20 years.
Dysart Middle School students walk toward the cafeteria during the first day of school on Aug. 3. (Courtesy Dysart Schools)
“One real problem is those old minimum guidelines from 20 years ago didn’t have pretty much anything for safety and security. That’s a huge issue now, and districts that have had bond funds have been able to use that money to install good security systems,” Adelman said. “The districts that don’t have the money and haven’t been able to pass bonds, by and large they don’t have any of those things.”
In the ‘parking lot’
Another major problem with the Building Renewal Grant fund as it stands now is that even if a project is approved, the lack of consistent funding has forced the now SFD to “park” projects for years, Adelman said.
“Under Gov. (Doug) Ducey’s administration, the school facilities people asked for $350 million as the amount they would need to fix these problems as they come,” Adelman said. “They only got $200 million, so predictably they ran out of money. We do not criticize the individual employees that work there. We think they’re trying really hard with the resources they have, but what they were doing is what they called putting these projects in the parking lot.”
A project would be approved but it would end up parked as the SFD tried to catch up as the insufficient Building Renewal Grant money from the state was quickly used to fund projects from an earlier cycle.
Dysart Unified School District students walk off a bus. (Courtesy Dysart Schools)
That’s the situation the Deer Valley Unified School District finds itself in, but luckily, it has bond money available.
“We have not received school facilities funding recently and do not believe we are very high on the priority list as we have been fortunate to be working under a bond thanks to the support of our community,” stated Brian Kilgore, director of communications and community engagement for the district, in an email. “We do have three roofing projects that we submitted to the School Facilities Division more than a year ago and are still awaiting a determination if they will be funded or not.”
Deer Valley Unified serves Anthem, Glendale, Phoenix, New River and Peoria.
Dysart has had better luck obtaining funds from the SFD for repairs, but some approved projects are still awaiting funding.
In the 2020-21 fiscal year, Dysart received $2.3 million from the SFD and in fiscal year 2021-22, the district received $2.5 million. Dysart serves parts of El Mirage, Glendale, Surprise, Youngtown and Maricopa County.
According to Renee Ryon, director of communications and public relations for Dysart, in the 2022-23 fiscal year, the SFD funded $17.6 million in projects. Another $10.2 million was also approved but the actual funding has been moved to 2023-24.
“In Dysart, we believe it is our duty to maintain our taxpayer-funded facilities to the best of our ability, and we work very hard to maintain all of our facilities and keep them in good repair,” Ryon stated in an email. “While we do utilize some of our annual funding from the state to maintain and improve our facilities, without SFD, there would be no other way to fund many of these projects for school districts that do not have access to bond funds. SFD is an essential part of supporting school facility maintenance.”
Ryon stated the additional requests will be submitted throughout the year and may include or are awaiting approved funding for roofing at Surprise Elementary and Freedom Traditional, cooling tower replacements at Cimarron Springs Middle and Willow Canyon High, and Marley Park Elementary roof and weatherization.
Peoria Unified serves Glendale, Peoria, Surprise and Youngtown. (Courtesy Peoria Unified School District)
As he prepares for court and keeps an eye on state allocations to the Building Renewal Grant fund, Adelman said he believes in two things: school funding is not a right or left issue and a well-maintained school makes for a better student.
“Maybe my view is naïve, but I don’t think this should be a red and blue kind of issue. I think there are some really good ideas that have come from the right as to how to take care of schools,” he said. “In Gov. (Jan) Brewer’s budget requests, she talked about implementing a system where they would look at all of the systems like roofing systems and air conditioning systems that exist at public schools, so that the state could put them on a schedule for replacement rather than replacing things when they fail.
“A kid never gets another opportunity to be a first-grader, so people may say, ‘Well, what are you complaining about? You just got air conditioning.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, but it took four years.’ That kid was learning under bad conditions.”
We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.
Janet Perez News Editor | Queen Creek &
San Tan Valley
Meet Janet Janet Perez joined Independent Newsmedia as editor of the Queen Creek Independent and Florence Independent in 2020. She started her career in 1989 with the Gannett-owned El Paso Times. In 1992, she moved to Tempe and has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio and television. She left Arizona for three years to work at New Mexico State University and Baylor University before returning to work at Arizona State University. Missing the business, she went back to journalism in 2017.
Community: A long-time pet owner, she supports animal welfare causes.
Education: University of Texas at El Paso with a BA in journalism and a minor in political science.
Random Fact: She had a head full of random facts.
Hobbies: Reading, watching documentaries, cooking and playing with her dogs.
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