Voters Should Reject Litchfield Elementary School District Override

By Michael Finnegan

Dear Voters,

As a concerned community tax payer, I have spent the last 1 and ½ years attending the Litchfield Elementary School District (LESD79) school board meetings and trying to better understand the school district. This is what I have learned and these are the facts.

The Litchfield Elementary School District (LESD79) and many other school districts in Maricopa County are addicted to 30 years of continuous school ballot box budgeting overrides. This current 2022 LESD school override request of $10.4 million, to be voted on election day November 8, 2022, will allow the district to continue exceeding its budget by 15% for an additional 5 years, while more than 45% of its student population(4,680/10,400 students) are not proficient in Math and English since 2015. These are cumulative deficits. That means a non-proficient student in 3rd grade in 2015 is not proficient in 8th grade, 5 years later. The doors of opportunity to many careers (doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc.) have slowly closed in front of them. Working a cash register at McDonald’s for $20K per year, which calculates the math for them, is their future.

The public school system is well-funded:

Since the year 2000, Proposition 301(a 0.6 cent sales tax on consumer purchases) has generated $667 million per year for schools. It has been extended by Ducey to the year 2041.

In the spring of 2018, the Red for Ed teachers shut down K-12 public education in Arizona. They demanded and received a 20% increase in teacher pay. Governor Ducey responded with a $648,000,000 per year teacher pay raise plan of 20% by 2020. LESD teachers have seen a 29% increase in base salary. In addition, they also receive $8,000 in medical & dental coverage, which otherwise would come out of their salary.

In 2019, due to Covid -19 school closings, leftover / unused maintenance and override funding surged to over $500 million.

In 2020, a federal Covid-19 stimulus of $4 billion was given to the Arizona K-12 system. LESD79 is receiving $11,072,445 in Elementary & Secondary School Emergency relief (ESSER) over three years!

58% of our total property taxes go towards public education (K-12, high school, community colleges).

Despite all of these funding sources, the LESD school district currently maintains a $20 million “rainy day fund”. Carryover money that hasn’t been spent in past years.

By stating, if the override continuation fails, it is unfair for the LESD school district to blackmail parents into believing “potentially” nurses will be cut and programs in art, band, P.E., athletics, music, and more reduced or eliminated while they sit on a $20 million rainy day fund.

By the way, a dollar-for-dollar $200-$400 tax credit exists to directly support extracurricular school programs valued by school parents!

A 2022 consultant override ballot survey, paid for by the LESD school district, asked and received a response to these 2 questions:

Public schools in the U.S. are heading in the right direction.

Disagree 68.2%

Public schools in LESD district are heading in the right direction.

Disagree 55%

We must resist requests for more funding while student performance is in decline. In the public school academic context, the phrase “costs have risen” has the same meaning as the phrase “we chose to spend more money”. More money for the public school system is not the answer.

Our taxpayer generosity has become a liability to the public schools. They continue to absorb vast resources, without any significant improvement in academic performance. If the override is NOT approved, the district will begin a 3-year plan to phase out the current 15% override by July 2025. This will allow them plenty of time to become fiscally more responsible and academically focused.

Michael Finnegan
Goodyear, Arizona