A flurry of activity took place late Tuesday following failed negotiations between the state of Arizona and a group of plaintiffs, which include five different school boards, the Arizona Education Association, the Arizona School Boards Association and several private individuals.
The plaintiffs filed suit in 2010 against then-Arizona State Treasurer Doug Ducey, now governor, over the state’s failure to fund Proposition 301 during the Great Recession of 2008. The inflation adjustment passed by voters in 2000 and would have provided roughly $330 million per year to public and charter school districts around the state during and after the recession.
Two years ago, the Arizona Supreme Court ordered the state to pay the debt back, while late last year Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper ordered the state to reset the education funding base level, which would have provided roughly $300 million to Arizona schools this year alone.
With the collapse of the negotiations, the seven-month-old stay has been lifted, but the Arizona State Legislature immediately requested a new stay be reinstated lest the state owe money immediately. The plaintiffs also allege the state owes Arizona’s schools around $1.3 billion in back payments.
After news of the failed talks went public, Arizona Senate President Andy Biggs [R-District 12] and Arizona House Speaker David Gowan, [R-District 14] proposed four funding sources to provide around $500 million to Arizona’s schools. The first two are to pay the budgeted additional $74 million a year already promised, plus an additional $100 million a year. Those funds would have an annual inflation adjustment of 1.6 percent.
The second two are harder to guarantee as they both require approval of voters, which may not happen considering the state’s fiscal mismanagement of our education system:
The third source will take some of the money from the Arizona First Things First program, geared to preschool education of children under age 5, and give that to school-age children. It’s hard to count this as an additional revenue stream as it’s merely stealing from one group of children to give to another.
The fourth is to use more earnings from state trust land, which could run into trouble if the profits on interest earned from ranchers using the land begins to fall.
About 25 minutes after this proposal by the de facto defendants was distributed, the plaintiffs issued their own statement lamenting the cost to our children of ongoing negotiations and the lack of meaningful traction to fund our children’s education.
“Students are returning to classrooms for a new school year while our state faces historic numbers of teachers leaving the profession due to a lack of resources,” AEA President Andrew F. Morrill said.
The state gutted all sorts of programs and services during the Great Recession and the bill has been due for years. The Arizona State Legislature has a legal obligation to honor the wishes of voters under Proposition 301, which the Arizona Supreme Court also ordered. Legislators also have a moral obligation to fund our schools, pay teachers and provide education to the youngest Arizonans. Their duty is to find ways to pay, not fight their obligation to pay.
“Arizona has $785 million in state reserves,” Morrill said. “Ducey should call a special session and demand legislators get this money into our classrooms now.”
The voters spoke in 2000, school districts spoke in 2010 and the Arizona Supreme Court spoke in 2013 — so why has our legislature refused to listen?
