With advocates for the consolidation of the Cottonwood-Oak Creek and Mingus Union school districts having collected enough signatures this spring in order to get the issue on the November ballot, the office of Yavapai County School Superintendent Tim Carter has been working over the past few weeks on a voter information packet.
The packet will be provided to voters in advance of the election, giving background on the issue before the vote in November.
On July 29, the county released a 55-page draft of the voter information packet, providing a primer on most of the impacts of the measure, including the effects on property taxes, district boundaries and district governance.
The opening summary of the vote’s effects in the document states that “if approved, the effect of this consolidation includes, but is not limited to:
- Mingus Union High School District No. 4 will no longer exist.
- Cottonwood-Oak Creek Elementary School District No. 6 will no longer exist.
- A new Unified School District will be formed within the current boundaries of Cottonwood-Oak Creek Elementary School District No. 6.
- Clarkdale-Jerome Elementary School District No. 3 will remain unchanged as a separate and distinct elementary school district and its governing board shall determine how the education of its students is provided, which includes determining how its high school students will be educated.
- Valley Academy for Career and Technology Education No. 01, aka VACTE, will have its governing board reduced from five members to four members.”
According to the proposal, the new district will have the borders of the current COCSD district, which is smaller than the boundaries of the current district, which includes the Clarkdale-Jerome School District. Under the new setup, residents of the new district will pay property taxes to the new Unified School District, while residents of the Clarkdale-Jerome School District, who currently pay property taxes to both Clarkdale-Jerome and to MUHSD, will only pay taxes to the former.
Clarkdale-Jerome’s board will be able to decide whether to send their high school-age students to another district, including the new Unified School District, and pay tuition for students accordingly, which the voter packet anticipates will likely mean changes in property taxes for Clarkdale- Jerome residents.
The voter information packet makes estimates of future property taxes, which suggest that the total property tax levy for COCSD residents will increase, while the future property taxes of CJSD residents will decrease.
The transition to a new district will mean that through December of 2022, the new Unified School District will have a 10-person governing board made up of the two currently existing boards, until the election of a new five-person board in 2022. Three members of the current MUHSD board would not be residents of the new Unified School District and would be required to step down after consolidation, to be replaced by appointments of the county superintendent.
VACTE, which currently has board members representing each of the school districts in the Verde Valley, will have its Governing Board reduced from five to four, as there will no longer be separate seats for COCSD and MUHSD.
The packet also includes a series of pro and con statements on the consolidation issue, provided by advocates of the two sides.
The county gave the parties until Sunday, Aug. 2, to provide requests for changes to the draft information packet.
The MUHSD board voted at a meeting on Thursday, July 31, on a series of recommendations, many of which were focused on emphasis and wording, but which included a request for additional clarity about potential budgetary results, including noting that the potential tax base for bond overrides of the Unified School District would be lower than the current one of MUHSD under current boundaries.
They also questioned the estimates showing lower property taxes for Clarkdale-Jerome taxpayers by suggesting that the cost to the district of paying tuition for students to attend high school would necessitate greater property tax increases.
The Committee for Better Upper Verde Valley Schools, which has led the push for consolidation and secured the signatures to get the question on the November ballot, submitted only requests for changes to some of the con statements based on disagreements over the facts, and praised Carter’s office’s handling of the issue.
“It was a consensus that Tim and his staff had really done an outstanding job,” CBUVVS member Bob DeGeer wrote in an email. “It’s comforting that Tim is reaching out to the Arizona Tax Research folks to get the correct tax implications with consolidation. As it stands now, property tax changes are really of little consequence. Certainly nothing to drive the vote.”
