LOCAL CONCERNS
Voters in Valley decide school, municipal issues today
Today’s elections are all about local matters. Glendale voters will have their say on whether elected leaders should get a pay raise.
Scottsdale voters will decide on funding for city projects, from road improvements to park upgrades.
And in 26 school districts across Maricopa County, voters will weigh in funding requests.
It’s too late to mail in your ballot for the all-mail elections. Voters who have not turned in their ballots or need a replace
ment ballot can stop by any of the 30 ballot centers across the county from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. today.
A list of those locations can be found at recorder.maricopa.gov/pollingplace.
School requests
Voters in school districts will determine major bond and override funding requests.
Both affect local property taxes. Bonds, with voter approval, 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.
An override can increase a district’s classroom budget by up to 15% 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, the most common type of overrides that are used for operational expenses such as teacher salaries and student programs.
❚ District additional assistance overrides, which supplement capital funding and typically fund technology, books and other equipment.
Scottsdale bond requests
Scottsdale voters will decide on the city’s $319 million bond requests to fund 58 potential construction projects, ranging from road improvements to public space upgrades.
The requests are broken into three categories:
❚ Parks, recreation and senior services: 14 projects, $112.6 million.
❚ Community spaces and infrastructure: 20 projects, $112.3 million.
❚ Public safety and technology: 24 projects, $94.1 million.
If all three bond requests pass, the owner of a $375,000 home, which is the estimated median home value in Scottsdale, would pay just less than $108 per year, according to the city.
However, the bonds can be issued over time as existing bonds are paid off to keep the city’s secondary property taxes at or below current levels, according to the city.
Pay raise for Glendale politicians
Glendale voters will decide whether the city’s elected officials get a raise.
The ballot measure, if approved, would boost the mayor’s salary by 42%, from $48,000 to $68,490, and increase council members’ salaries by 55%, from $34,000 to $52,685. The new salaries would take effect Jan. 1.
Those supporting the change point out that the last time Glendale’s elected officials received a pay boost was in 2006. Those arguing against it say the raises are not justified, and they oppose the formula that would be used to determine the salaries moving forward.
If the measure passes, the salaries will be recalculated annually using a formula based on the median salary for city employees. The mayor’s salary would be set at 30% more than the median salary, and the council’s salary would be set at 1% less than the median.
This fiscal year, the median salary of city employees is $53,217.