Higley Unified School District’s budget for fiscal year 2023-24 includes a small one-time tax increase to improve public infrastructure at campuses.
The adjacent ways levy of $0.16 per $100,000 assessed valuation will cost the average homeowner $0.44 and be charged only once. It will raise $1.5 million through the primary property tax that will be used for making sidewalk, roadway and public right-of-way improvements for buses and fire equipment.
However, that was enough for Board Member Anna Van Hoek to vote against the budget package, which passed 4-1 at the board’s June 28 meeting.
Van Hoek noted the district has a $23 million budget balance carry forward in the maintenance and operations budget and $7 million for unrestricted capital budget. The budget balance carry forward is the unexpended balance at the end of a prior fiscal year that has been rolled forward to the next fiscal year.
“With the amount of carryover that we have, I believe the tax levy wasn’t necessary,” she said. “Yes, I know that per statute, we can do that, but that doesn’t mean we should tax the community without their approval.”
The maintenance and operations budget, which pays for day-to-day operations of the district including most salaries, will be $124.79 million.
That was figured assuming no increase in the average daily membership of the district, a key figure in the state’s budget formula. ADM is total enrollment of fractional students and full-time students, minus withdrawals, of each school day through the first 100 days in session.
The state boosted the baseline support level by 2% for inflation in this year’s budget.
The unrestricted capital budget, which pays for items like building maintenance, transportation, technology and curriculum, will be $23.7 million. That includes a transfer of $5.6 million from maintenance and operations to the capital budget, primarily to pay for the district’s middle school leases.
The state also gave a one-time aid supplement of $3.49 million that the district allocated to the capital budget. That and a larger-than-anticipated carry forward inflated the capital budget to $23.7 million from an originally anticipated $17.41 million.
The carry forward increased because of a number of expenses incurred in 2022-23 that will not be paid until 2023-24, Chief Financial Officer Tyler Moore said.
The average teacher salary will be $65,802, an increase of $85 from 2022-23 despite the board approving in March a 2% increase to teacher’s base pay. The modest increase is a result of retirements and those teachers being replaced by less experienced ones, Moore said.
Van Hoek also voted against the memorandum of understanding between the district and Higley Education Association, saying she did not believe it was necessary for the district to have an agreement with the association and that the district should not be paying stipends to Higley Education Association leadership.
That sparked a heated debate between Van Hoek and Board Member Amanda Wade about the association. Ultimately, the board approved the agreement 4-1.
Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on Twitter. We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.
Tom Blodgett Senior News Editor | Gilbert @sp_blodgett
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
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