Schools’ bonds, overrides on ballot

Twenty school districts in Maricopa County are asking voters to approve bonds and overrides in the Nov. 6 election.

The funding requests are local property tax-funded measures intended to offset gaps in state funding.

Bonds and overrides affect local property taxes. School districts do some of the math in estimating the impact on voters’ taxes and provide that in the voter pamphlets, which can be found on the Maricopa County School Superintendent website.

A bond may be issued by public school districts to pay for longer-term projects, such as building new schools, renovating existing ones or investing in technology and transportation infrastructure. Voters approve the sale of bonds to raise money for these projects.

An override can increase a district’s classroom budget by up to 15 percent for seven years, though the last two years are used for phasing out the override. This is why school districts typically ask voters to renew existing overrides in their fifth year, to avoid a phase-down.

The two types of overrides districts are asking for this year are:

❚ Maintenance and operations overrides are the most common type of override and are used for teacher salaries and student programs.

❚ District Additional Assistance overrides supplement capital funding and typically fund technology, books and other equipment.

Because Maricopa County’s schools are divided into a patchwork of districts, funding requests vary wildly. Smaller districts typically ask for less; bigger districts ask for more money spread out among more taxpayers.

Take Nadaburg Unified School District, a district on the county’s outskirts that serves a little more than 1,000 students. Nadaburg is asking for a $2.3 million bond to purchase new school vehicles, improve school buildings and upgrade technology, among other improvements.

Mesa Unified School District, however, is the state’s biggest, covering Arizona’s third-largest city. It serves about 65,000 students. That district is asking for both a bond and an override. The $300 million bond, if approved, would help revive aging facilities.

Most of the 20 school districts with funding requests are asking for override renewals — seven school districts are asking for bonds.

It’s unclear how the massive teacher walkout in May will affect voters in November.

Bond and override elections are historically wildcard elections. Last year, for the first time in at least a decade, Maricopa County voters approved all 27 bond and override measures.

Voters approved 24 of 28 school ballot measures in 2015, and 17 out of 20 in 2016. But they approved less than 50 percent of override requests in years prior.

In April, Mesa’s then-Superintendent Michael Cowan warned educators who were considering a walkout that it could mean “a loss of public support.”

Cowan has since retired. It’s unclear whether #RedForEd swayed voters either for or against approving more local funding. No one argued against approving Mesa’s bond in its voter pamphlet.