PHOENIX (AZFamily) — As Arizona schools are serving up summer meals, they’re hoping to get served a little more money from the state soon.
“I think it’s really a question of priority. Why are we prioritizing a private school voucher program instead of public schools that serve 90% of our kids,” said Save Our Schools Arizona executive director Beth Lewis.
The Arizona Department of Education is currently facing a $206 million shortfall in basic state aid. Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne says $45 million is from West-MEC estimations being off, $69 million from the Qasimyar v. Maricopa County lawsuit, and $52 million from the ESA program, among other reasons.
“Some people are going to try and blame ESAs but ESAs are only 25% of the problem,” explained Horne.
This shortfall has led to districts and charters getting only around 63% of their June payments so far. “Larger districts can probably kind of cushion the blow a little bit, whereas small and especially rural school districts are really going to feel the pain,” said Lewis.
On Thursday evening, House and Senate Republicans announced they had come to a budget negotiation agreement that includes supplemental funding for K-12 schools in Arizona, but the budget has not been signed by the governor as of Thursday night.
“These are bills that have to be paid, and I feel confident that they will pass it,” said Horne.
An Arizona Department of Education spokesperson says the department will work as quickly as possible to pay that final 37% as soon as a budget is official, but Lewis says the last month is just a small piece of a bigger problem.
“I think that all of our districts and charters will be made whole. It doesn’t mean that there weren’t disruptions during the summer. But the other problem there is now we’re prioritizing this backfilling of voucher funding, there’s the backfilling of Prop 123 and so there’s no new funding for K-12 schools,” explained Lewis.
Prop 123 is set to expire on June 30. It was narrowly passed in 2016 by voters.
If it expires, the distributions from the state land trust will go from 6.9% down to 2.5%. The 4.4% difference, more than $200 million annually, will still be paid to schools moving forward but will come from the state’s general fund.
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