Long supported by voters, Mesa school bond election measures now face GOP opposition

For decades, bonds have funded Mesa Public Schools capital expenses, like school renovations, the construction of new buildings, and the replacement of outdated fire alarm systems. In addition, since 1995, the district has had a budget override in place for operational expenses.

But this election, as the district is asking for voter approval of a $500 million bond and a continuation of the budget override, there is vocal opposition stemming from GOP leaders in the East Valley.

As bond supporters engage in get-out-the-vote efforts, they have found themselves fighting misinformation and distrust of the school district.

Mesa Public Schools, which serves approximately 55,000 students, is seeking voter approval for a $500 million bond and a continuation of a 15% budget override. Paid for by secondary property taxes on homeowners' limited property value, they are ways for school districts to seek additional funding. This year, Mesa Public Schools is one of 22 districts in Maricopa County asking voters to approve bond or override measures. Tax rates are projected to remain flat if the bond and override measures pass, according to Scott Thompson, the district’s assistant superintendent.

While the Mesa community has historically supported bonds and overrides, Marcie Hutchinson, the president of the governing board, said the campaign doesn’t take anything for granted. She has been helping to lead the campaign to pass a bond and override, and her husband is the chair of the PAC supporting the efforts, Mesa Alliance for Educational Excellence, which is online at yesformesaschools.org.

The district’s last bond request in 2018 only passed by 50.33% — with 937 votes, according to documents from the Maricopa County elections website. It was a considerably slimmer margin than the previous request for a bond in 2012, which was approved by a 64.36% vote, and the request before that in 2005, when voters approved a bond by 68.67%.

This year, the bond campaign has drawn hundreds of supporters, Hutchinson said.

They wrote 18,824 handwritten postcards asking potential voters to support the bond, with messages like “Our future depends on today’s students!” and “Great schools attract jobs and economic opportunity for Mesa!” and “Make sure students are prepared for their workforce opportunities!”

During the first three weekends of the campaign, they knocked on around 3,000 doors, said Kelly Berg, a calculus teacher at Dobson High School and the president of the Mesa Education Association.

Berg, who has been at Dobson High School for 27 years, said that district residents have overwhelmingly been positive about the bond.

But she said that much of the campaign has involved fighting misinformation coming from the opposition and that the big push against the bond request is new this election.

Funding sought for safety measures, tech, salaries

If approved by voters, the 2023 bond would fund safety measures, technology devices for students and staff, and modernization of learning spaces and facilities, according to the district.

The district has a lot of failing infrastructure, including air conditioning and plumbing, said Louis Arseculeratne, an electronics technician in the district who has been organizing canvassing efforts and installing signs in support of the bond. Almost half of the district’s schools are more than 40 years old, according to the district.

Some of the fire alarms and intercoms are outdated, Arseculeratne said, with parts that are no longer sold. “So, if it fails, it’s a problem,” he said. During a June community presentation, Thompson, the assistant superintendent, said the district wants to continue school renovations and eliminate portable classrooms, which he said were intended to be temporary and are not ideal spaces for students to learn. The district also needs to maintain and replace student devices, he said.

Hutchinson said the district needs the bond to ensure there are safety protections in place, including bulletproof windows, one-way entrances, cameras and systems to coordinate with the Mesa Police Department. Some of those efforts would be a continuation of projects funded by the 2018 bond, which included secured school lobbies at 17 schools, as well as upgraded air conditioning systems, environmentally friendly air-conditioned buses, a performing arts center and other renovated facilities at Mountain View High School, upgraded facilities at Mesa High School and student devices, according to the district.

In addition, about 14% of all staff salaries are funded by the budget override — “from the bus drivers to the superintendent,” Hutchinson said. According to the district’s 2023 Annual Financial Report, 89% of override funds in fiscal year 2023 went to salaries and benefits. The district's average teacher salary in fiscal year 2022 was $66,459, compared to the state average of $58,366, according to data from the Arizona Auditor General.

"That ability to be above the average is primarily driven by that 15% budget continuation," Thompson said during the June community presentation.

Budget overrides allow districts to increase their budgets by up to 15% for seven years to pay operational expenses, with full funding for the first five years, then a phasing out in the final two years. The district last got voter approval for a budget override in 2019. That year, the district requested a five percentage point increase — a 15% override, up from 10% — in order for the district to have competitive teacher salaries with neighboring school districts that already had 15% overrides. If the override were to fail this year, the district could ask for it again next year, and pay would not be impacted, Hutchinson said. But if a second attempt at renewing the override were to fail, pay would soon begin tapering off until the existing override period ends, or the override is restored.

Because the district needed to renew its bond and it only gets five years of full funding from the override, it decided to consolidate the two elections this year, Thompson said.

Bond and override face vocal opposition from the Republican Party in the East Valley

Bonds and overrides are an investment the Mesa community has made for decades, Hutchinson said. “Mesa’s a pretty conservative community, but it’s always been a community that cherishes its public schools,” she said.

But this year, there’s a vocal push against school bonds from Republican Party precinct committeemen in the East Valley. According to Ken Berger, chair of the Arizona Legislative District 10 Republicans, opposition to school bonds is a “unified decision” among the GOP leaders of LD10, which encompasses east Mesa, LD9, LD14 and LD15. Those four legislative districts cover much of the East Valley.

It’s a growing effort this year stemming from frustration with math and English proficiency rates as well as graduation rates, Berger said. On the 2022 statewide assessments, 38% of Mesa Public Schools students were proficient in English Language Arts, and 31% were proficient in math. Those percentages were just slightly lower than the statewide results — 40% of students were proficient in English and 33% in math — and its four-year graduation rate, 76.85%, was slightly higher than the state’s, 75.52%.

“More money is not helping,” Berger said.

Arizona's per-pupil spending is among the lowest in the nation, according to U.S. Census Bureau data from fiscal year 2021. While the nationwide average was $14,347, Arizona spent $9,611 per pupil — only Utah and Idaho spent less.

Several LD10 GOP leaders wrote public statements opposing the bond, arguing that it’s an undue burden on taxpayers, that schools must explore alternate, creative solutions to address needs and that students aren’t benefiting from Mesa Public Schools. Some claimed that transparency and accountability were lacking.

On social media, LD10 GOP leaders have been vocal against the bond and override, arguing that school districts are poor stewards of taxpayer dollars and citing district policy related to transgender students — the district allows transgender and gender-nonconforming students to use names and pronouns that reflect their identity and access facilities that match their gender identity — as a reason to vote against the bond and override, as well as claiming that teachers are receiving training in critical race theory.

Republican precinct committeemen in the LD9 and LD10 created a website opposing Mesa Public Schools’ request for a bond, Berger said.

The website, savemesa.org, claims that the district has hundreds of millions of dollars in unspent COVID relief and bond funding.

In reality, that number is far lower, according to Thompson, the district’s assistant superintendent.

The website claims that as of August 2023, the district had $182 million in unspent funds from the last bond. According to Thompson, as of September 2023, the district had approximately $28 million remaining in bond funding. As of June 2023, that number was approximately $45 million, he said during the Oct. 3 board meeting.

The website also claims that as of August 2023, the district had $173 million in unspent federal COVID relief money. According to Thompson, the amount of COVID funds that hadn’t been spent or allocated via salaries or a purchase order as of September 2023 was $6 million. The district's numbers are available on its website and were presented publicly at an October 3 board meeting.

"We do have plans to spend that remaining fund," Thompson said of the district’s remaining bond and COVID money.

Berger said the number of remaining COVID dollars on the savemesa.org website was pulled in August from the Arizona Auditor General's COVID-19 spending report, which included data through June 30, 2022.

Hutchinson, the board president, believes that concerns from the opposition about fiscal transparency are unjustified — there’s a state and internal audit of the district’s finances, she said.

“The misinformation makes me crazy because you can look in Board Docs,” which is the website where the governing board’s agendas are posted. “Every expenditure is accounted for,” she said.

The opposition website also has a section that asks, “What policies did Mesa Public Schools implement with my tax dollars?” It points to the district’s guidelines regarding transgender students and also makes the claim that “teachers openly promote the LGBTQ agenda.”

“One of the opposition signs says, ‘stop sexualizing kids,’” said Berg, the Dobson High School calculus teacher. “I just don’t get it, because we don’t do that. I’m just dumbfounded, to be honest, why people would say that.”

“They say we're indoctrinating kids,” Hutchinson said. “No … we’re an all-American institution. But all American means you tell the story of all Americans.”

Hutchinson believes the distrust of the district is unfair to teachers and is ripping at the fabric of the community.

Mesa Mayor John Giles is an ardent supporter of the bond and override campaign — his father was a school principal, and he’s a father of three children who work in Mesa Public Schools and a grandparent of eight children who attend school in the district.

Support for public education has been a legacy characteristic of the Mesa community, Giles said. But he said that unless they fight for that public support, they’re at risk of losing it. The opposition is using “straw man, bogeyman” arguments to “scare people and to create emotions that have no place in a sane conversation about this election,” he said.

He wants people to understand how important the override is for teacher salaries, and how important the bond is for facilities, “so that we can remain competitive as a school district,” he said.

As a registered Republican himself, he said he’s disappointed that Republican legislative district leadership is engaging in “anti-school campaigning.”

“There’s no place for that,” he said. “This is not a partisan issue.”

The last day to mail ballots for the bond and override election is Oct. 31, and in-person drop boxes are available until Election Day on Nov. 7.

Madeleine Parrish covers K-12 education. Reach her at mparrish@arizonarepublic.com and follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter: @maddieparrish61.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mesa school bond election now faces GOP opposition