District Schools: Enrollment Down, Facilities Up, Taxpayers Suffer

Economics is the study of how individuals, businesses, and governments make choices about allocating scarce resources to produce, distribute, and consume goods and services.

A major principle of economics is the law of supply and demand. As demand increases, supply is also increased to create a balance. Conversely, as demand decreases, supply also decreases, again to reach a balance.

Arizona district schools have never learned the rule of supply and demand, or have been violating it willingly, as revealed in a recent report by the Common Sense Institute. This report shows that enrollment in district schools has been declining and districts have been increasing facility capacity. What has been happening has been described as follows by Lynne weaver, longtime property tax reform activist:

“Arizona taxing districts, which include school districts, bond to their limit even when they don’t have a project worthy of taking on debt and raising everyone’s property taxes. In the rare event that a bond is defeated at the ballot box, the taxing district tries again until they’ve reached their goal of getting the maximum tax revenue allowed. This abuse will continue until we somehow get the Arizona Legislature to change our property tax laws and end this wasteful spending.”

Major reforms are not likely to come from the legislature. Even a very minor, common-sense reform to inform voters about how much is already being spent before agreeing to spend more has met vigorous opposition. In 2016, Senate Bill 2551 was summarized on the legislature’s website as follows:

HB 2551 requires school district bond and override election informational materials to include a statement of the total amount of per pupil funding received by a school district.

Between 2016 and 2018, five bills containing that or similar language failed:

YEAR	BILL NUMBERS	DISPOSITIONS
2016	HB2551	FAILED
2017	HB2480 SB1375	FAILED FAILED
2018	HB2171 HB2524	FAILED FAILED

REASONS FOR DECLINING DISTRICT SCHOOL ENROLLMENT

In 2008 district school enrollment was 947396. By 2023 it had declined to 873,805. District schools are now serving about 92% of the students they were serving a few years ago. Here are some reasons why:

1. The overall population of school-age children has declined
2. District schools have shifted emphasis toward indoctrinating in social matters and away from teaching the basic skills necessary to succeed
3. The performance of district school students in Math, English, and Science has been lower than ideal.
4. Special needs students have needs that are better addressed in schools other than district schools.
5. The vacuum created by district schools has been filled by alternative schools, like charter and private schools.
6. School choice has become more affordable for parents.

REASONS FOR INCREASING SCHOOL CAPITAL SPENDING

During the same period, capital spending has risen about 67%, totally ignoring the fact that fewer students need fewer or smaller facilities. Here are some reasons why:

1. They can do it. There are no significant restrictions on the level of capital projects expansion that taxing districts can engage in.
2. There is a lot of money to be made as the result of voter-approved bond issues. The beneficiaries of this include contractors, bankers, brokers, and many others
3. Tax payers are often outgunned by wealthy and powerful proponents of the bond issues. It is not unusual for corporations or individuals who stand to profit by bond-funded capital expansions to spend large quantities of money promoting YES votes. Rank-and-file tax payers rarely have the resources to counter this.
4. There has been little incentive for the legislature to advance or promote measures that would create taxpayer-friendly property tax reform.