Somerton leaders urge start on new school
Officials seek to break ground whether or not state delays funding
SOMERTON — Elected officials here want construction to get started as soon as possible on a new high school campus, regardless of whether the state delays funding for the work.
In December the Arizona State Facilities Board notified the Yuma Union High
School District that previously authorized funding for the campus would be postponed, pushing back the start of the construction by one year to fiscal 2021. The facilities board said new data showed district’s student growth had not grown as fast as previously estimated.
Yuma County Supervisor Martin Porchas, whose district now covers the city, notes that in 2015 the district sought and won voter approval of a $79 million bond issue that included $25 million for the Somerton campus.
“There are no excuses not to begin building a school as was originally planned.”
Somerton Mayor Gerardo Anaya said he likewise is anxious to see construction get started, given the city is committing its funds to the purchase of land for an athletic complex on the city’s west side that would be shared by residents and students of the new high school.
“There’s no reason not to begin the project,” Anaya said. “The funds were approved not only by voters in Somerton but those in the county, since it is a high school district project. So voters are waiting for it to be done because it means additional money they are paying through their taxes.”
The Somerton school is expected to serve about 1,200 students with Somerton addresses who now attend campuses in Yuma, most of them at Kofa High School, YUHSD Superintendent Gina Thompson said.
The district, she said,
needs the additional funds from the facilities board to be able to open a campus that provides Somerton students with the same level of instruction received by students at campuses in Yuma and San Luis.
Even before 2015, district officials new the bonds would cover only the cost of a bare-bones campus in Somerton, she said.
In an interview with the Yuma Sun in 2015 prior to the bond vote, then-Superintendent Toni Badone said the funding proposed for the Somerton campus was “not a lot of money.”
“It’s a good amount, but it’s just the first phase for the school,” Badone said. “It’s classrooms, a cafeteria or multi-purpose room. It’s not the complete facility. It is not an auditorium. It’s not a library. There are things that are not in the plan. It’s not going to be instantly equitable. It can’t be.”
Porchas agrees funding is needed from the facilities board. But he, Anaya and Miguel Villalpando, a Somerton city councilman, say they want construction to begin now and continue in phases as money becomes available.
“I think the state decided not to have anything to do with the original plan that we had with the high school district,” Villalpando said. “If the district has the funds, the governing board can approve those funds being used, and begin the school with the minimum necessary to operate. We never expected to have a school with everything from the beginning.”