The Scottsdale Unified School District will host town hall meetings in each of its five learning communities beginning next week, regarding the Nov. 7 Maintenance and Operations override special election.

SUSD is asking voters to reauthorize the current M&O override that will expire in June 2025. Voters approved the current override in 2019. The 15% override request would result in $22,350,888 in additional funding to the district, with a tax rate of $0.33 per $100 of net assessed valuation. The renewed override would cost the owner of an average home in the district $173.78 per year. The Arizona Department of Revenue State and County Abstract puts an average Scottsdale home’s value at $523,750.

Funding brought in by the M&O override supports these SUSD programs:

• current class-size ratiosfree, full-day kindergarten
• competitive teacher salaries
• elementary school classes in art, band, music, P.E. and strings
• world language instruction
• middle school and high school fine arts, athletics and extracurricular activities
• staff salaries and professional development

The schedule for the 6 p.m. town hall information sessions is as follows:

• Thursday, Aug. 31: Saguaro High School, 6250 N. 82nd St., Scottsdale
• Tuesday, Sept. 5: Desert Mountain High School, 12575 E. Via Linda, Scottsdale
• Wednesday, Sept. 13: Arcadia High School, 4703 E. Indian School Road, Phoenix
• Tuesday, Sept. 19: Coronado High School, 7501 E. Virginia Ave., Scottsdale
• Tuesday, Sept. 26: Chaparral High School, 6935 E. Gold Dust Ave., Scottsdale

M&O overrides are in effect for seven years. If they are not reauthorized by voters by year five, overrides begin to phase down until they expire after the seventh year. In this instance, the phase-down amounts to a funding loss of approximately $7.3 million per year. As is common practice among Arizona school districts, SUSD is seeking the override’s renewal one year before the funding reductions would begin. If the override should fail this year, the district would have another opportunity in November 2024 to seek voter reauthorization.

The Nov. 7 override election will be a mailed ballot-only election and will be administered by the Maricopa County School Superintendent’s office. Informational pamphlets will be mailed by that office to the homes of all registered voters residing within SUSD; Oct. 9 is the last day to register to vote in order to be eligible to vote in the M&O override election.

Read more about SUSD’s 2023 override at susd.org/override.