In what can only be described as the best choreographed Tucson Unified School District board meeting since 2011, Board president Adelita Grijalva, and Superintendent H.T. Sanchez ambushed board member Michael Hicks for his support of legislation that would end the District’s desegregation funding in ten years.
After a heated attack, in which Senator Steve Farley accused the Arizona Tax Research Association of lying to Senator Debbie Lesko in order to win her support for SB1371, Grijalva hugged and thanked the lawmakers for making their dramatic appearance.
Farley made his attack despite the fact that Hicks issued a statement earlier in the day in which he noted that he would support the continuation of desegregation monies on the condition that the District hire and internal auditor and appoint members to an independent audit committee.
While Grijalva, and Sanchez have squandered the desegregation monies, they did not squander the opportunity to demonize Hicks and the Arizona Legislature.
However, even Hicks’s opponent in the last election addressed the misuse of desegregation monies. She noted that the district has used the monies as a “slush fund.” But it is the lack of understanding by the public and the media of the specified use and source of the money has allowed political opportunists like Farley and Grijalva to exploit the situation for their political purposes.
Contrary to news reports, the funding is not from the federal government and is not prescribed by the federal desegregation order. The funding mechanism was created by the Arizona legislature years ago, and the source of the money is local property taxes.
After the assault, Hicks tried to read a statement into the record, but Grijalva blocked him. “It is a point of order that I’m going to go ahead and have to ask Mr. Hicks to stop speaking if he doesn’t respond to the criticism,” said Grijalva.
“I am responding,” said Hicks. “I am giving my explanation as to my stance on the desegregation funding.”
Farley’s rant addressed everything from Hicks’ “cute” campaign signs to the accusation that Hicks was damaging “our children like this.” Farley demanded that Hicks resign.
Southern Arizona Rep. Mark Finchem said he was surprised that lawmakers would involve themselves in another governing body. He questioned the propriety of lawmakers attacking another elected official. “Mr. Hicks offered his opinion on the bill as a private citizen. Sen. Farley used his official position to make his attack. I believe that unfortunate to say the least. To accuse ATRA of lying and Hicks of damaging children is less than we should expect from representatives.”
Rep. Victoria Steele joined Farley in the attack. “Every day we are fighting bad bills that want to hurt public education,” said Steele. “When I learned this week that what we are fighting so hard to protect – TUSD – that there was somebody, who seem to be working in opposition, that was disheartening.” Steele said, “Please understand how important it is to have solidarity. We need you to be united. We need you to be a solid force.”
The Board is anything but a solid force. One of the reasons Hicks expressed his support for legislative action was due to the fact that Stegeman had negotiated the details for hiring an internal auditor with Board member Cam Juarez, only to have Grijalva reject the deal.
Stegeman read a statement into the record in response to the lawmakers’ attack:
I do not agree with Michael Hicks’s position on the desegregation funding bill. I am very concerned about losing any desegregation funds while the unitary status plan and the court are imposing so many requirements upon the district. Without the desegregation funds TUSD would essentially be coping with millions of dollars of unfunded federal mandates.
I much appreciate the work of those in and outside of the legislature who are working… to defeat or to reduce the impact of this bill.
I am concerned, however, about the harsh personal attacks directed at Michael for voicing his opinion. In one widely read email, an elected official wrote that Mr. Hicks has “undercut … the students, teachers, and parents he took an oath to defend.” In another, a member of this board called his statement “irrational, malicious, sabotage, and shameful” That email goes on: “How can a school board member who took an oath to serve and protect the school district he represents advocate for such financial cuts?”
The oath that I took committed me to protect the constitution and the laws of the state of Arizona. It did not limit my right to express an opinion on pending legislation. It did not require me to place one voter’s set of interests ahead of another’s. I know that many TUSD voters support reducing the desegregation tax. They are entitled to express their opinion. And if they are entitled to express their opinion, then so is their elected representative.
Some have suggested that Michael’s statements were inappropriate because they do not reflect the majority viewpoint of the board. But I have heard many legislators express opinions that do not reflect the majority view of the legislature – and they have every right to do so. These legislators do not always add the caveat that they may not represent the majority viewpoint, because everyone understands that. Everyone understands that elected bodies include majority and minority viewpoints.
The harsh personal rhetoric that often permeates discussions in TUSD, rhetoric that focuses on individuals rather than on policies and practices, is a constant drag on the district. I believe that TUSD will regain the confidence of the public only when the discussion in this room focuses more consistently on policies and schools and less on ourselves.
For years, plaintiff representative Gloria Copeland has been asking Hicks to help her end desegregation funding which she believes is the primary reason that the District avoids integrating. Copeland has argued that as long as the District receives the money is has no incentive to stop its discriminatory practices.
Hicks’ complete statement:
I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of our speakers who shared their views of my stance on the desegregation budget.
Let me set the record straight, I do support then concept of schools receiving desegregation funding; what I don’t support is the mismanagement and misappropriation of the desegregation funding that TUSD has been receiving for over 30 years.
Public schools like TUSD receive revenues from many sources. It is essential that public funds be directed effectively and used for the purposes for which they are allocated. Public support for TUSD’s funding has been weakened by decades of inappropriate spending and inadequate internal controls.
TUSD has often been told through many different sources that we need an independent Internal Auditor; the last audit, which cost over $300,000, told us the same and when it was brought to the board the majority voted it down, wasting a good faith effort by several board members. Let me remind everyone that both the Board and Superintendent vowed that TUSD would implement the efficiency audit’s recommendations.
It is no wonder that so many do not trust TUSD’s use of the desegregation funds.
Now the administration is looking to dilute TUSD’s Audit Committee by placing staff on the committee. I do not want our audit committee to be stacked with cronies of the district. They tend to be rubber stamps of the chief executive. In this environment, they tend to disguise control rather than contribute to it.
The Arizona Daily Star on Oct 31, 2007 stated that “TUSD owes taxpayers an explanation for collecting nearly $1 Billion over the past two decades now that it maintains in a court filing that the goals of its decades-old desegregation order were met in the first five years, according to an attorney representing Hispanic families in the lawsuit.”
In July of 2011, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit wrote: “The district court determined that the school district failed to act in good faith in its ongoing operation under the settlement agreement. The district court stated concerns about whether the district had sufficiently eliminated the effects of past de jure segregation.”
Millions of dollars of the desegregation budget are spent on Magnet schools, but Judge Bury wrote on January 16 of this year: “The court does not disregard the Mendoza Plaintiffs point that existing magnet schools have been starved of leadership and adequate resources for over 30 years, making it difficult to assess which magnet plans might succeed with proper support.”
“Given there has been extensive studying, reviewing, and reporting on TUSD’s magnet schools since 2011, the court is confident that the District has all the information needed, but simply failed to present it in a comprehensive fashion which is the purpose of the CMP.”
Lastly, the fact sheet for S. B. 1371 states: “Phases out desegregation funding over five years for schools with existing or previous agreements with the United States Department Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and ten years for schools with existing or previous court orders under desegregation.” The gradual phase-out of 7% per year means that TUSD would have received desegregation funds for nearly 50 years. That is enough.