Monday I wrote a postย about Ducey’s proposed 2018-19 budget. I got some of the facts wrong. I thought Ducey had proposed $214 million in new educationย spending, including $88 million to build or expand schools in Chander, Queen Creek and Tolleson.ย My numbers were wrong on both counts. I’m going to try and get closer to right in this post. No guarantees I’ll be exactly on the money.
I tried my damndest to pull together the details of Ducey’s budget proposal by reading a bunch of accounts in the media, but my damndest wasn’t good enough. Better would have been to goย directly to the source, the official State of Arizona Executive Budget Summary, Fiscal Year 2019. Near as I can tell, Ducey’s proposal contains $190.4 million in new money for K-12 education beyond adjustments for inflation and student growth. Here’s the part of the proposal listing the education numbers.
Add together the two “Initiative” lists, and you get $190.4 million.
See the item near the bottom, “$5.1 million, New School Construction”? That’s the first of 25 yearly payments toย cover the $88.1 million needed to build or expand three schools in Chandler, one in Queen Creek and one in Tolleson Union High district. That means every year for the next 25 years, $5.5 million for those schools will be part of the education budget.
My first mistake in fact gathering was to pay any attention to the op ed written by Ducey (or whoever writes those things for him)ย explaining his education budget: My education plan restores $371 million to K-12 schools. I knew he wasn’t “restoring” $371 million for education, that he stuffed every available dollar into his total whether or not it wasย part of a “restoration.”ย But for some reason I believed him when he put this itemย in the list of “additional funding for K-12 education”: “$88.1 million for the construction of new schools.” That is a lie. The budget includes $5.1 million for new school construction, not $88.1 million. He knows that, of course. He purposely, blatantly misled the public in the op ed to make him look more like the generous “education governor” he pretends to be. And, fool that I am, I bit.
Some articles in the media correctly wrote that Ducey proposed borrowing, not spending, $88.1 million. I should have been paying better attention. But others stated that he requested the entire amount in his proposal just like I did.
The other thing which added to my confusion is that the current 2017-18 budget includes $64 million to build or expand schools in Vail, Queen Creek and Chandler. So far as I can tell, that’s a one-time payment, not borrowed money to be paid back over a number of years. I made the incorrect assumption that this budget would also cover the new construction expenses rather than paying them off over 25 years.
All that being said, my basic point in the last post remains. Over the past two years, a big chunk of money has been allocated to build schools in four districts, three of which are in high income areas, at a time when there’s not nearly enough money to go around. If our schools were adequately funded, those expenses would be part of a larger funding package for building construction and maintenance, and itย wouldn’t deserve much attention. But when funding is ridiculously low and our governor is making his love of and generosity toward our schools a major part of his reelection campaign, it’s important to distinguish between money dedicated to improving the education of students across the state and money going to a few, mostly affluent districts. We deserve an accurate picture of just how muchย how little he’s planning to spend.
This article appears in Jan 11-17, 2018.
You should be ashamed David. After chastising me, I have waited a week to see if there were any sources to confirm Dick Durbin’s claim of what President Trump said regarding “other countries.”
As of 3:19 PM Nevada time today, there has not been a confirmation. But there have been three separate denials. Either not said or not heard.
“Hatred causes blindness which can not be cured.”
I’m sorry to hear about your vision problems, Wayne. Maybe one day there WILL be a cure.
Lets keep in mind that the state of AZ is the most corrupt state in this nation. (Harvard Study, 2014) Of course Ducey wants to look good and will say anything to make himself such. Just like all of them. No harm no foul. Despite my differences with Safier at times, I find no “pattern” of him ever mis posting, with intent to deceive the reader, as I see with most journalist or “journalist/commentator”. The error on Mr. Safier’s post, is only supporting the corruptness that goes on within the state. I thank him for the fix. Only those who read his stories consistently, know his pattern. He may lean slightly to his left, but, it’s his right as well to write. Right?
Contrary to your rant, the $88.1 million is new spending. It may be borrowing at the state level but it is spending at the school level. The state will have to pay it back, not the schools.
In many years, all new education spending, capital and O&M is accomplished by borrowing at the state level.
The state is probably over $20 billion? in debt, that was all education spending. This entire package might be accomplished with new debt.
Because Arizona has had a strong economy and runs one of the top 5 most efficient and effective state governments, it can do this kind of thing.
Face it Wayne, tRump called those countries shitholes.
Why are you ALWAYS defending tRump anyways?
Are you actually Sarah Huckabee Sanders?
John, I didn’t state that the $88.1 million wasn’t new spending. I said that the entire $88.1 million won’t come out of this year’s budget. It will be $5.1 million for the next 25 years. Of course it’s new spending, but you can’t add all of it to this year’s total.
Two quotes from my post.
“That means every year for the next 25 years, $5.5 million for those schools will be part of the education budget.”
“The budget includes $5.1 million for new school construction, not $88.1 million.”
Mr. Safier,
Please forgive Mr. Huppenthal. He never comprehends anything. What is really sad about that is he comes across an intelligent, although manipulative, person. I truly believe that he has selective comprehension. Which makes his commentary even sadder.
Pathetic even.
“[I]t’s important to distinguish between money dedicated to improving the [K-12] education of students across the state and money going to a few, mostly affluent districts.” Yes, that’s true. Good analysis, David Safier. Thanks much.
And yet, in the broader context, there’s a sense in which old school liberals like Safier are people who urge us to keep mopping the floor, failing to notice that the house is burning down. They pointlessly organize themselves to register voters while the Republicans redistrict and take over both houses of Congress, the Presidency and the Supreme Court. They flog the same old “K-12 public school funding adequacy and equalization” project, missing the fact that what has happened with pricing of higher ed and the student loan “industry” has made it impossible for large cohorts of people who work for a living to devote time to advocacy projects that tinker with universal K-12 funding adequacy and equalization; the cost of higher ed forces too much time-consuming damage control with their own children’s education and economic prospects. (And they shoot themselves in the foot with their “funding adequacy!” cause when they chronically fail to hold the politicians in control of some troubled, urban public districts accountable for ensuring the proper application of the inadequate funds that are granted to them, leaving parents in those districts doubly-punished, first by inadequate funding at the state level and then by improper application of the limited funds available in their children’s mismanaged and malfunctioning public schools. But God forbid those doubly-punished parents should be allowed to apply their tax-derived per-pupil funding in schools that actually function properly and educate their children. To grant that they should be allowed to do so is a heresy punishable by excommunication from the “liberal” (?) tribe.)
To return to the main point, about the effect of higher ed costs on the overall “equity in education” project: Cost of attending that “public” bastion of free speech and student activism, UC Berkeley, for out-of-state students is, like all top-tier American universities, “public” and private: over $60K per year. Look it up, crusaders for social justice. While you’re at it, look up the University of Michigan and UCLA: same story. In-state cost of attendance at the U of A is a bargain by comparison: only $25K per year, but this is still much higher than it used to be as a percent of average income and it is nowhere near what the state constitution says it should be, “as nearly free as possible.” Some “merit aid” (essentially discounting) occurs based on student merit and a few well-endowed institutions can afford to grant need-based aid that doesn’t load students up with debt. The existence of this reality post-K-12 forces shifts in the behaviors of people in the K-12 system. People with knowledge of what higher ed has become don’t have the luxury of letting their neighborhood public school do what it does and be what it is: they have to look for ways to boost their neighborhood school’s performance by securing supplementary funding (through lobbying Ducey for “performance based funding” or through District 13 and 16 private foundations to supplement funding or through public school tax credits, which go disproportionately to affluent district), or they have to look for alternative charter or private settings that will enable their students to get into well endowed institutions and / or qualify for merit aid.
Bottom line is that you don’t treat the symptom without addressing the cause. The sector that needs analysis and a smarter form of advocacy than Safier and his fellow travelers have thought to engage in is the loan-peddling sector which has inflated higher education costs by successfully pushing loans on students. This sector’s sub-prime mortgage schemes which exploited the working poor blew up the entire economy in 2008 and now they’ve got new targets: not home owners, but anyone using the higher education system. If mainline Democrats don’t start addressing this loan-peddling sector directly instead of continuing to advocate that we spend our time mopping up the increasing inequities that are its toxic byproducts in our K-12 public education system, soon the “universal education” project will be in ashes and there will no longer BE a floor for Safier and other 1960s-style liberals to insist we mop.