Chandler Unified School District and Perry funding
For decades, Arizona has been one of most frugal states in the nation for K-12 spending. The trend of tight wallets at the state capitol has seen Arizona drop all the way to 48th in the country on per pupil spending, down nine spots from 1992.
Even with propositions, bonds and overrides, Arizona spends only $6,897 per pupil (in operational spending, according to the Arizona Auditor General), which is still far behind the national average of $11,700.
The Chandler Unified School District has grown exponentially over the past 30 years, attracting thousands of students across the East Valley during that time.
In 2001, CUSD’s enrollment was 20,756; now in 2016, that enrollment has reached an all-time high of 41,028. Such growth demands expansion in resources and buildings to accommodate student needs, and such additions require funding.
- A numbers game
The problem lies in how Arizona funds education through property taxes and the general fund. These groups finance the state’s education budget – from maintenance to teachers’ salaries.
Because of property tax funding, districts in wealthier neighborhoods have more money to spend, whereas districts in lower-income areas struggle because the average cost of housing is far less.
“The state says we’re going to make all taxpayers pay a portion of [school funding] the state will pay the difference,” CUSD chief financial officer Joel Wirth said. “In this district it happens to be about half.”
In addition, cities that attract large corporations are more dedicated to higher-paying jobs, which increase tax revenue – this also pays for education with families having more disposable funds to spend on larger homes, creating higher property taxes. At the school level, the majority of funding is derived by the enrollment on the 100th day of the previous school year.
“This year we’re being funded on last year’s numbers,” principal Dan Serrano said. As the principal, Serrano decides the school’s budget each year to provide the most productive use of funds.
Wirth added: “You need flexibility, so that’s why I like it when they let the principal decide.”
Serrano said that the trend of increased enrollment is an advantage PHS has “that will help us get through the school year.”
- Save for a rainy day
Ensuring that a district as large as CUSD can afford so many students can be a challenge. With so many students pouring in from out of boundaries, the bill would appear to be too large to pay, but that is not the case.
Superintendent Camille Casteel keeps an eye on what is going on in the district. Wirth describes her purpose as the person “in the middle determining which is the appropriate place [for funds to go].”
This role became crucial during the Great Recession in 2008, but CUSD was able to not only maintain and operate their schools, but do it without having to drastically reduce its staff.
By contrast, surrounding districts such as Gilbert and Higley felt the sting by having to make serious readjustments to their budget and cutting staff members.
According to Wirth, Chandler escaped that fate thanks to CUSD’s strategy of conserving money for a “rainy day.”
Casteel explained that this fund was built over time, as the district is very conservative in terms of spending.
“We don’t have a lot of bells and whistles, we stick with the basics, and we try to be real conservative in our expenditures,” she said.
In the case of an event like an economic recession or major loss of students, this contingency fund would provide for schools to easily adjust.
“Let’s say again we drop 500 students, we’re not going to go in and fire anybody,” Casteel said. “We’ll use the contingency to pay those salaries, so we transition the year so we can transition easily.”
“We’ve been dealt a good hand, now we try to not to make a mess of it, and do good things with it,” Wirth said.
- Voter impact
The CUSD budget consists mainly of two large funds: a maintenance and operation (M&O) and capital fund. Together, these funds cover nearly all district needs.
About 61 percent of that funding goes to instruction, which is made up mostly of the teacher salaries.
Sometimes there are leftover funds that cannot be used the following school year; but a change in the law has allowed that leftover money from each school year to rollover into the next year’s fund.
“It used to be you could only move four percent. Four percent out of this budget is a big number, [but] it encouraged us to spend money not wisely,” Wirth said.
“Now ‘Maintenance and Operations’ is just what it says,” Casteel explained, “it’s to maintain and operate the building, so it pays the salaries, buys the custodial supplies, it buys your paper and pencils, it helps you operate this building and its consumable money.”
Even with the money that is rolled over to the next fiscal year, capital money supplements the holes. These critical funds are raised through overrides and bond elections to increase the limits the state places.
According to Casteel, bond elections are strictly for capital. The community votes to approve the growth of the district with new infrastructure and new technology.
Overrides are, by contrast, for maintenance operation, Casteel said. “That’s for salaries, paper, pencil, gasoline, all those things that you consume, grass seed.”
By having overrides and bonds, the district can focus on strengthening by having more of the funds go directly to students.
- Politics of public education
While CUSD has adequate funding and knows how make it work, there are still several issues with the current process.
Transferring money from one account to another is not as simple as one would think. There are rules in place to monitor the transfer of funds; however, the rules seem to only work to a certain extent.
“There’s rules that you can’t transfer, but you can always get around them,” Wirth said. “There’s just too many easy ways because these two big funds are everything.”
This comes into play when looking at the many overcrowded schools in the district.
New students come with their $6 thousand, but several schools still lack the space and supplies they need to adjust to this influx of students.
Some would argue that this problem comes from the lack of funding the state education system receives. One way to change this would be to change the political primary, but that would be no easy task.
“The reality is the primary is never going to change,” Wirth said, “because people just don’t get out [and vote] and unless it just happens to be some hot topic they don’t push for something.”
He believes that with more money and funding the district can solve the funding problems,
but the conservative base in the legislature believes that schools tend to spend money unnecessarily at times.
The district and the legislature are working together to create a balance between the need for educational funds, and the need to spend money wisely.
Wirth said, “What we are trying to do is work with the Republican legislature and find areas where we can agree. And we’ve had some successes.”
Currently, CUSD has initiated a collaboration with other districts to create the Intergovernmental Agreement to address issues surrounding public school funding. Lobbyist Meghaen Dell’Artino is working with legislators to achieve long-term goals of receiving more funding throughout the state.
Wirth explains lobbyists learn about the issues and advocate for increased rights by communicating with legislators. Dell’Artino remains the voice to stay well connected to CUSD and support increased funding and avoiding bad bills.