Scottsdale Unified School District will have to act fast to put a bond request on the November ballot.<\/p>\n
According to SUSD Superintendent Scott Menzel, \u201cJune 8 is when the ballot language is due to the county.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be bringing forward a recommendation on May 12 for board action,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
At its April 28 meeting, the SUSD Governing Board was bombarded with information lumped into the agenda item \u201cPotential Bond Election.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA potential bond would focus on key district priorities, including infrastructure improvements, life-cycle maintenance of existing facilities, instructional technology needs, safety and security upgrades, and replacement of aging buses,\u201d an agenda report on the topic noted.<\/p>\n
The board heard about recent bond packages approved by district voters, tax projections for three options and \u201cvoter preferences.\u201d<\/p>\n
The latter was presented by paid consultant Noble Predictive Insights.<\/p>\n
Though not quite a sales pitch, the consultant\u2019s survey of 408 \u201clikely voters\u201d could whet the board\u2019s appetite for a new bond request.<\/p>\n
According to Noble\u2019s survey, a third of respondents believe SUSD is moving in the \u201cright direction\u201d; a quarter said the district is headed in the \u201cwrong direction.\u201d Forty-two percent were unsure.<\/p>\n
Asked if they would pay $16.73 per month for a school bond, 59% said they would \u201cstrongly support\u201d or \u201csomewhat support\u201d the request. And 30% opposed the idea, with 10% unsure.<\/p>\n
Perhaps not much of a shocker, support dropped when the projected bond price increased.<\/p>\n
A $350 million received 67% support.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes\u201d responses dropped to 54% for a $475 million bond.<\/p>\n
The district\u2019s most recent bond election was approved by voters in 2016 in the amount of $229 million.<\/p>\n
At the April 28 meeting, the board was given an overview of three bond options: $375 million; $395 million and $475 million.<\/p>\n
If the board decides to ask for a bond, it will come roughly a year after a split vote to shutter two SUSD schools.<\/p>\n
In the coming months, Menzel will present other possible campuses to close.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re possibly going to ask for a bond while we are talking about closing another school or two or three,\u201d Dennis Roehler, SUSD\u2019s director of Facilities and Bond Management, acknowledged.<\/p>\n
Menzel quickly jumped in, noting \u201cour primary investment will be in schools that are thriving.\u201d<\/p>\n
The superintendent repeated what has come to be his catch phrase: \u201cWe have to shrink our footprint.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though declining enrollment \u2013 and enrollment-related funding \u2013 is putting more schools on the chopping block, Menzel strongly hinted at \u201can opportunity before we take the potential bond to voters \u2013 we can add more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, as voter approval is required in most cases involving selling district property, the board may put a request to sell unused schools on the ballot.<\/p>\n
More detail on that idea is also expected at the May 12 board meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scottsdale Unified School District will have to act fast to put a bond request on the November ballot.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":774467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,1589,151503,7600,25535,25540,165350,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-774466","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-phoenix","12":"tag-scott-menzel","13":"tag-scottsdale","14":"tag-scottsdale-unified-school-district","15":"tag-susd","16":"tag-susd-governing-board","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116520982130187102","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}