The Tucson Unified School District is again putting budget-override
questions before voters this year, after defeats in 2004 and 2008.

“We’re giving the kids the bare bones right now,” declares Judy
Burns, president of the TUSD governing board, citing the $45 million in
budget cuts the district has made. “This is a chance to give them what
they should have.”

However, not everyone agrees with Burns.

“This is the most outrageous (of the three override requests),”
counters Mary Terry Schiltz, chair of BEST TUSD, a group opposing this
year’s effort. The group also opposed last year’s budget-override
request.

Two questions will be decided on Nov. 3. The first, Proposition 401,
is an annual $18.5 million maintenance and operations budget override
lasting seven years.

Of these funds, a total of $10.5 million would be divvied up and
given yearly to schools to be used as their individual site councils
decide. Another $6.5 million would go toward guaranteeing the
district’s existing full-day kindergarten program, with the balance
being spent on technology improvements directed at Internet access and
speed.

Proposition 402 would allow TUSD to spend an additional $9 million
annually for seven years on technology upgrades, such as replacing
approximately 10,000 classroom computers, and upgrading district
operational systems.

To look at the need for improved TUSD technology, I visited
midtown’s Catalina High School last week, where 320 computers serve a
student population exceeding 1,300.

The school has seven computer labs that are used each period, and
three others which can be scheduled for use.

The computers, referred to as “clunkers” on the Catalina campus,
range in age from 5 to 15 years old. A number of them were out of
commission, awaiting repair.

Bandwidth capacity at Catalina is limited, leading to slow Internet
access. It was lunchtime during the visit, though, so not many machines
were in use, and it took about one minute for a TUSD video to
appear.

Voter support of Prop 402 would increase the property tax on a home
with a full cash value of $100,000 by an estimated $22.67, while
approval of Prop 401 would add $46.47 a year more.

Commercial property owners would be hit harder. A business in the
district with an average full cash value would see a tax increase of
$563.63 annually to pay for the first proposition, and $274.96 for the
second.

Schiltz argues that Prop 401 is financially redundant, since
full-day kindergarten is already paid for by the state. She also points
out that bond funds were approved for technological upgrades five years
ago, and the district has been embroiled in legal controversies over
obtaining additional federal money for this same purpose.

“It’s preposterous to ask taxpayers to put out more money,” Schiltz
says.

Burns, a longtime critic of the district’s past approaches to
funding technology improvements, responds that most of the people who
created the problems are no longer employed by TUSD.

Burns also fears that the deficit-riddled state will not continue to
pay for full-day kindergarten: “They told us this year they weren’t
going to pay for it, then all of a sudden, said they were … It’s
impossible to know where they’re going.”

Schiltz, who calls herself a strong proponent of public education,
says that despite district assurances, she’s not convinced the override
money would actually end up being used in the classroom. She says that
the Arizona Department of Education has shown that TUSD spends the
lowest percentage of its budget in the classroom compared to the other
10 largest districts in the state.

Late last year, TUSD Superintendent Elizabeth Celania-Fagen
indicated the district was doing its own analysis of classroom
spending. (See “Shaking Things Up”, Nov. 13, 2008.) However, district
officials couldn’t produce the results by this story’s deadline.

Another point continually raised by override opponents is the
district’s collection of $64 million in annual property taxes under a
court order for desegregation efforts.

“They already have a huge override,” Schiltz says of these funds,
“which is taxation without representation. At least with the
propositions, we get to vote.”

Burns responds by pointing out that desegregation money can only be
spent in certain ways. “Every penny we use has been approved by the
court in one way or another,” she says.

Despite the desegregation funds, statistics from the Arizona
Department of Education for the 2007-2008 school year show that TUSD
didn’t spend the most per pupil in Pima County. The TUSD expenditure of
$8,337 is about $500 per student higher than the county average, but
that amount was exceeded by both the Vail and Tanque Verde school
districts.

“We’re seeing other districts growing and getting more money,” Burns
says, “while TUSD is becoming an inner-city school district.”

Tucson’s largest school district has been losing students in recent
years. Since reaching a peak of more than 62,000 earlier this decade,
TUSD now has a total enrollment of less than 56,000.

To prevent that trend from continuing, Burns says: “I hope the
voters still value public education.”

Schiltz, however, says the impacts of an override approval on
people, families and businesses would be “horrendous”.

“We’ll pay and pay again,” she concludes of Propositions 401 and
402.

This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2009.