CUSD Board adds $2.5M for 3 traffic-related projects

Jul. 17—For the most part, the Governing Board of Chandler Unified School District has very little control over how much money is coming in. Those decisions are primarily left to state legislators and voters.

The one exception is a slice of the property tax that funds the district's adjacent ways fund. That is used to improve traffic infrastructure around campuses.

The Chandler Unified Governing Board approved adding $2.5 million to the primary property tax levy to fund three of those infrastructure projects this fiscal year. That is about the same amount collected a year ago, so property owners will not see an increase because of it.

"We try really hard to keep that tax flat because it only gets paid off in one year," said Lana Berry, the district's chief financial officer. "We try to maintain that instead of having a huge spike with a whole bunch in one year."

If the board had rejected the increase, there would have been a noticeable drop from $6.75 per $100,000 valuation, down to 28 cents per $100,000 valuation. The 28 cents is for dropout prevention that has been grandfathered in so it does not need approval every year.

The three projects the tax will fund are:

—Moving overhead powerlines at Galveston Elementary underground as part of that school's rebuild.

—Installing a traffic signal at Rice Elementary.

—Adding a road for the district's new transportation facility, a joint project with the City of Chandler with each paying half of the cost.

Berry said the district plans out the projects it needs to fund so that the tax remains essentially the same from year to year. All of the money must be spent in this fiscal year, she said.

"Ultimately, there's a lot of oversight not only on how we collect the tax, how the board approves it, but then how we can spend those dollars for the future," Berry said.