Mesa schools points to funding gap after court rules AZ legislators inadequately fund schools

By Connor Van Ligten
Mail

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Dewain Fox recently ruled that Arizona state lawmakers are violating their constitutional requirements to adequately fund public schools.

In his decision, Fox said Aug. 13 that many schools in the state lack the resources for things such as equipment and building repair.

Dr. Matthew Strom, superintendent at Mesa Public Schools, said it makes sense that the court ruled funding was inadequate.

“We function on funding that’s ranked about 49th in the nation,” Strom said. “We’re really grateful that the taxpayers of Mesa Public Schools in our local region have been present in local votes to solve the funding gap that the court is honoring.”

Even with local voters helping to pass overrides and bonds to make up some of that funding gap, Strom said that there are still a lot of funding gaps that make it difficult for the district to complete necessary repairs and renovations to district buildings.

“You can only put so much pressure on your local taxpayers to fund gaps that have occurred... We still have needs in Mesa Public Schools,” Strom said. “We have constant building renewal grant dollars that we’re after, including some recent dollars that we just went after for emergency funding to cure up our facilities. The funds from local taxpayers are appreciated but we still have a need to make sure our basic infrastructure is cured up in Mesa, including our air quality and basic systems within a school.”

Tyler Moore, the Chief Business Officer for Mesa Public Schools, said the district has a lot of needed maintenance that will require a hefty sum of money. The district has built up quite a backlog of projects, according to Moore.

“We have over a billion dollars in basic facility needs. We have something called MAG which is the minimum adequacy guidelines that the state has issued in terms of where your facilities should be on a minimum basis. So that billion dollars is based on just meeting those basic needs for our facilities, like proofing, weatherization, building infrastructure and support,” Moore said.

Moore agreed with Strom that the court ruling illustrates the need for more funding.

“We’re thankful for the voters on bonds and overrides. But this state ruling emphasizes the greater need for K-12 (funding),” Moore said. “There’s still a massive gap in funding with regards to what we need to meet those minimum guidelines that the state has issued as an expectation for school districts to maintain, but has not provided the funding to support.”

Mesa Public Schools Chief of Staff Justin Wing said with public schools in Arizona educating well over 70% of the state’s student population, more funding should be a top priority.

“Having facilities for these students that have high quality air, quality water, quality cooling systems, it’s just flat non-negotiable and facility adequacy is not extra,” Wing said. “It’s something that is mandated by our state constitution as a judge has upheld. We have a great voter base that’s been very supportive of us but we still have about a billion dollars’ worth of facility needs in our backlog. We anticipate with great excitement a legislative solution on this.”

MUSD — also known as Mesa Public Schools — is the largest public school district in Arizona and has six high schools, nine junior high schools, 55 elementary schools and 18 choice and success schools.