Higley searches for answers -- and money

Nov. 20—Faced with the failure of both its bond measure and seven-year extension of its 15% operating budget override, Higley Unified School District is figuring out its next steps at the same time it's looking for a new superintendent to begin the 2025-26 school year.

And whoever is selected will be leading the district as it deals with the budget cuts necessitated by the override's defeat.

"We're going through those scenarios right now, and they'll be presented in the governing board meeting soon. But that override was supporting people, programs, and a lot of things that impact our schools on a daily basis. So we're taking our time to identify those short term, immediate solutions," Higley Chief Financial Officer Tyler Moore said.

"If you're a little bit familiar with the overheads, it's kind of complicated. In Arizona, you get five years of fully funded and seven years of authorization. We are currently in year five of five. So that fully funded expires June 30, 2025," Moore explained.

The district for next school year will have to cut 33% of the override funds, which is about $4 million, by Moore's early estimates.

In the following year, Higley would need to phase out the rest of the funding, which would mean a total $13-million hit to its maintenance and operations budget.

Unofficial results showed the override failed with 50.38% of the votes to 49.62% favoring it — a margin of 317 votes.

The defeat was more decisive for its $83 million bond, which would have been used to revamp the district's aging infrastructure and fund safety and technology improvements.

Unofficial results showed 56.67% of voters said "no" while 43.33% approved the bond. The margin of defeat totaled over 5,000 votes.

Moore said the district could seek an all-mail vote next year for the override.

As for the bond measure, he said, "This is the third bond in four years, I believe, the district has failed. Yeah, so it's pretty clear that ...the voters are not going to be supporting a bond in the foreseeable future.

"So that district will have to look at other solutions to source capital funds to support the buildings we have."

Moore said that while options to source the capital funds are still being assessed, the short-term impact would be that many of the district's building renovations will likely be postponed.

Projects earmarked for bond funding included HVAC upgrades and repairs, new roofs for some schools, classroom expansion and renovation, and front office security, and transportation and buses.

Moore acknowledged that the district has not had much success in getting grants as means of alternative funding.

"We've been unsuccessful in several grants due to our demographics, but there's other grants out there or leasing," he said.

"Those are popular options when districts or in entities and businesses that don't have enough capital funds to support large projects."

"So they'll lease it over a period of time, and then make a payment schedule on that. So those are solutions that we're looking at and potentially looking at some of our land."

Moore said that, in terms of must-do projects, the district's priority will be repairing buildings' infrastructure.

"We're kind of focusing on doing those fixes, repairs, patches, because that's a cheaper solution to them replacing the whole entity," he said.

"So it's not, like I said, permanent, and it's oftentimes not foolproof because we have to come back in and do that again. But those are some of the immediate things that we're going to be doing."

Moore also said he would not change anything in the way that the district's supporters went about the information campaign around the bond and override measures.

"I think that process we did was pretty good. I think we'd had a Citizens Committee call for the election. The district did not call for this election," he said.

He also said competition from charter and private schools probably had an impact on the votes' outcome.

"I just think we're in a really competitive time in regards to ESA (Empowerment Scholarship Accounts) vouchers and charter schools," Moore said.

Even with Higley's 12,000 students, Moore said, there is considerable competition within the 24-square-mile district.

"Equally, a lot of those people don't have kids in our district. They're not inclined to vote 'yes' on those. And so it is just, I think, a faction of how we are placed demographically," he said.

Moore added that the district is also starting to see a decline in enrollment due to families aging out of the district and less turnover in its neighborhoods.

But all is not gloom, Moore said.

"We're still an A rated district — we're one of the highest rated districts academically. We're still here, we're not falling off the face of the planet. We're still committed to providing a quality education for our students."

Other school races

Gilbert Public Schools was luckier at the ballot box with its two fiscal measures.

Voters approved its override extension, meaning the district will still have $36 million annually to ensure competitive teacher salaries and funds programs for college-ready graduates.

The money also goes towards campus safety and maintaining class sizes with some of the money set aside for class size reduction.

"Yes" votes for the override comprised 53.1% of the vote to 46.9% against.

GPS also got the approval of 64.54% of votes to sell the two parcels of land it owns — the Madero property east of Crimson road and Madero Avenue in Mesa and the Cole property, east of Cole Drive at Lakeview Trails in Morrison Ranch

The GPS Governing Board race had seven names on the ballot although only five candidates were actually running for three four-year seats.

GPS board president Sheila Rogers-Uggetti passed away and incumbent Ronda Page dropped out of the race soon after filing.

Orthodontist and small business owner Blake Robison led in unofficial vote counts with 22.28%, followed by state employee Jesse Brainard with 17.67% and Mesa Public Schools teacher Shana Murray with 17.63% .

Realtor Ann Stevens got 15.43% votes while GPS parent Rose Parker garnered 14.49%. Incumbent Page got a small chunk of the vote even though she isn't in the running with 6.72% and Rogers-Uggetti had 5.79%.

Six candidates were in the running for three seats on the Higley Unified School District Governing Board.

Incumbent board member and small-business owner Tiffany Shultz led with 18.43% votes. Holistic health practitioner Sara Jarman jumped ahead with 17.7% and public school teacher and former HUSD board member Scott Glover was slightly behind her with 17.56%.

HUSD parent Kathleen Richards had 17.23% and Military veteran and financial analyst Marc Garcia had 16.93%, followed by Higley parent Taylor D. Francis with 12.15%.