Chandler Unified bond defeat sparks soul searching, questions

Nov. 17—Everyone at the Chandler Unified School District Governing Board meeting Nov. 13 agreed it was good news that the state was going to pay about $10.8 million to replace the roof at Chandler High School — though it caused one board member to ask some hard questions.

"What did you know and when did you know? Why did you not disclose it?" Kurt Rohrs asked district administrators.

"When you went through the whole bond campaign, this was one of the marquee issues that we had — to get a roof for Chandler. To recap, that didn't work for Chandler, but it got taken care of another way. Why didn't we tell anybody about that?"

Voters rejected the district's $487 million bond request in the Nov. 5 election by a margin of nearly 54% to 46%. The roof replacement for the district's oldest campus was one of the projects officials said the bond money would be used for.

Rohrs wondered why district officials waited until the first meeting after the election to announce the state's decision.

The first classes for Chandler High School started in the 1914-1915 school year but students did not get a proper campus of their own until 1922. The school has been remodeled several times since then as the number of students increased.

Each time officials remodeled it, they matched the design of the original school.

"The Chandler High School roof is nearing its end of life expectancy and needs to be replaced," Chief Financial Officer Lana Berry told the board.

Rohrs voted against putting the bond measure on the Nov. 5 ballot because he objected to the amount the district would be seeking amid declining enrollment. It was the largest request the district had ever made.

He said he was not surprised voters rejected it — the first time a CUSD bond request was voted down since 1990.

One speaker at the meeting offered a possible reason why it was rejected.

"It took me back to my beginning years here in Chandler," said Brett Wingate. "I don't know how many of you remember it, but it was 1986 and at that time, the Chandler District was a lot smaller. It incorporated Sun Lakes, and we had a real problem with getting bonds through because they didn't have any kids in the system.

"It dawned on me that what we're experiencing now is that we have all become Sun Lakes."

Chandler's population is aging and in many cases, young families with school age children cannot afford to live here because the median price of a home is $100,000 more than in neighboring communities. The district's demographer said recently enrollment will likely drop about 10,000 students over the next decade.

Wingate argued that when families don't have children attending CUSD schools, they will vote against the bond. District residents repay the money borrowed and its interest with their property taxes.

District officials said they were not keeping the information about the grant from voters. it's just the timing worked out that way, they said.

"This is the first chance that we've had to put it back on [the agenda] and come forward," Berry said.

She said the district did not find out that the School Facilities Division of the Arizona Department of Administration had awarded the grant to fully pay for the roof replacement until last month.

Even then, Superintendent Frank Narducci said, the grant was not guaranteed until the district secured a contract with a company that the state could review. The contract was awarded to Concord General Contracting for $10,799,120.

Once the state reviewed the contract and approved it, then it was final and the news could be shared.

"As you recall, we've been working on this for three years," Narducci said, pointing out that the same state body has rejected applications for the roof replacement two times before.

Berry said when they first asked the state for money three years ago the roof replacement projected cost was $6.5 million. Since then, inflation has driven the price to $11.5 million, but Berry said they were able to negotiate it down to $10.8 million.

Rohrs said he's happy the district found another way to pay for the roof replacement, but he was still unhappy about one part of the contract.

"I notice that the sales tax that we pay the City of Chandler is $521,000 to put this roof on," he said. "You would think that they would help us out a little bit."

Board election

In the CUSD board races Nov. 5 for three open seats, Claudia Mendoza was the top vote getter with 19.43% of the vote, according to unofficial results.

Joining her will be parental rights candidate Ryan Heap, who placed second with 18.98% and current Board President Barb Mozdzen, who is nearing the end of her fourth term on the board. Voters gave her a fifth term with 16.65% of the vote.

Heap said he hopes to change some of the negative feedback he heard during the campaign about parental rights candidates.

"Over the course of this campaign I've been called many things by other parents, by teachers, by my opponents — bigot, racist, transphobic, extremist," Heap said.

"Now I have a chance to disprove that hateful rhetoric and to demonstrate what I have realized through this campaign — how much I love the rising generation and how much I want their future to be as bright as possible."

Leanna DeKing finished in fourth with 15.61%, followed by Zeyna Pruzhanovsky with 15.34% and Eloise Gillespie with 13.99%.