Higley Unified School District board members were divided after voters appeared to reject the district’s 15% maintenance and operations budget override renewal.
The margin of defeat widened compared with last year’s failed attempt, when the measure lost by about 300 votes, fewer than 1% of the vote.
Updated unofficial results as of Nov. 6 from the Maricopa County Elections Department show the override renewal failing with 8,709 “no” votes (54.39%) to 7,304 “yes” votes (45.61%).
A separate measure authorizing the district to sell, lease or trade district-owned property passed with 10,445 “yes” votes (66.58%) to 5,242 “no” votes (33.42%).
The override would have continued about $14 million a year in local funding that supports teacher pay, academic programs and smaller class sizes — roughly 15% of the district’s maintenance and operations budget.
Votes are still being counted, and results are unofficial until the vote is canvassed.
District Superintendent David Loutzenheiser issued a statement Nov. 5 apprecating support for the district but acknowledging that the results mean the district will implement changes to program funding and staffing.
"The measure of a community is not how it handles success but how it faces adversity," he stated. "In Higley, we will come together with poise, creativity and persistence to face these challenges while maintaining our focus on student success and opportunity."
Governing Board President Amanda Wade said she was “devastated” by the result.
“Honestly, I feel defeated, but I am always committed to doing absolutely everything we can to provide and do what's best for students here in Higley,” she said. “We've got a lot of work to do this next year to figure out how to get our community to understand why it's in their best interest to continue to support Higley, which is an amazing school district, and figure out how we can make this impact students the least.”
Wade said she did not expect the override to fail by the margin it did.
“Having conversations with families that we've had and those kinds of things, I did not,” she said. “It felt different this year than it has in past.”
She said the district will have to assess its financial options in the coming weeks.
“Ultimately, the only options we have on the table are to patch it for as long as we can before we can get people to support it,” Wade said. “And hopefully we don't have to go to a place that's worse. ... I just don't know what any of the next year is going to look like yet.”
In Arizona, school district overrides allow voters to approve additional local funding above the state’s basic formula, up to 15% of the general budget. Overrides must be renewed by voters every five years or they begin to phase down by one-third each of the next two years until eliminated.
Because the override failed in 2024 and 2025, Higley’s budget authority will continue to decrease in the 2026–27 school year, unless voters later approve a new measure next November. That gradual phase-down is designed to give districts time to plan for potential cuts in staffing, programs or services as local funding declines.
Wade said losing that funding will make it difficult for Higley to stay competitive with neighboring districts.
“It's 15% of our budget — what an obscene amount, and all of our neighboring districts have it,” she said. “We will not be able to compete. We're going to lose teachers. We're going to lose families.”
Board Member Anna Van Hoek, who opposed the override, said in an email statement that the results reflected residents’ financial concerns and lack of trust in district leadership.
“The voters have made their decision, and I respect the outcome of this election,” she said. “This override was on the ballot last year and failed by approximately 300 votes. Instead of listening to that result, the district and the majority of the board chose to place the measure on the ballot again. This time, voters did not just say no, they rejected it by over 1,500 votes in an off-cycle election.”
Van Hoek criticized the cost of holding the election, which she said was about $100,000, and argued that families are struggling with “rising water rates, inflation and higher cost of living.”
“The message from voters is clear: now is not the time to ask families to pay more,” she said.
She also pointed to “a trust issue that must be acknowledged,” citing district reserves, school capacity and staffing levels as areas in need of review.
“Many residents have expressed concerns about transparency, spending priorities, the direction public education is heading and long-term planning,” Van Hoek wrote. “They want to see operational and structural changes, not repeated ballot measures.”
Moving forward, “our district must focus on rebuilding trust through transparency, align staffing and spending with actual enrollment trends, conduct a realistic capacity and utilization review, and meaningfully involve the community in our planning process,” Van Hoek said.
The separate land authorization measure, which voters approved, allows the district to sell, lease or trade property it owns without returning to voters for additional approval.
Wade said that option could provide temporary financial relief if the district chooses to sell land, but doing so would also limit long-term flexibility.
Van Hoek questioned the district’s transparency on plans regarding the land ballot measure.
"Many voters believed the question involved only a land sale, not the broader authorization to sell, lease or trade,” she wrote. “This is exactly why I advocated for separate ballot measures, so the community’s intent could be clearly expressed. Most assumed this vote meant that we would sell.”
Wade expressed disappointment that the board was not united behind the measures.
“I really wish that we had a board that really understood the financial situation that Higley finds themselves in,” she said. “I don't believe we have them.”
Wade said she remains focused on minimizing harm to students.
“We've got a lot of work to do this next year to figure out how we can make this impact students the least,” she said.
Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines. Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on X.
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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