Queen Creek school board to vote on proposed $126M budget

The Queen Creek Unified School District’s governing board is set to vote on a proposed $126.2 million budget for the 2026-27 school year at its upcoming meeting.

The meeting starts at 6 p.m., Tuesday, July 7 at QCUD offices, 20217 E. Chandler Heights Road.

The budget’s maintenance and operation limited expenditure is $121.2 million, with an additional $5 million carried forward to the upcoming year, bringing the limit to $126.2 million. That’s a decrease of about 1% from the current expenditure limit of $127.5 million.

Also in the upcoming budget, the unrestricted capital outlay fund is at more than $14 million, plus a $3 million carryover from the current year for a total of $17 million. That’s down almost 3% from the current year’s capital outlay of $17.5 million.

The unrestricted capital outlay fund pays for items such as library books, textbooks, furniture, tech hardware and software, and construction.

Under the proposed budget, the average annual teacher salary will increase to $66,694 from $65,386 during the 2025-26 school year. The budget also includes the teacher base salary of $54,500 that was approved this spring by the governing board.

The district may also share in a $53 million carryover from the state’s school safety program.

Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne announced on June 30 that the money will be used to ensure that all 560 first-position requests for armed school officers will be funded in the upcoming school year, according to a press release from the Arizona Department of Education.

“School safety is of the utmost priority, and I am committed to providing armed officers to every school that makes a request,” Horne stated in the release.

The state is also providing funding to support 523 mental health professionals in schools across the state.

“The safety legislation provides dollars for both categories depending on the choice of the district or charter school,” the release continued.

QCUSD boundaries span 48 square miles and include 10 elementary schools, two junior high schools and three high schools. The district’s student population is approximately 15,000.

The first day of school is on Monday, July 20.

Janet Perez can be reached at jperez@iniusa.org. Please send your comments about this article to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.