Though the cash strapped Scottsdale Unified School District is losing students and closing schools, the district is lowering tax rates.<\/p>\n
And giving its superintendent a raise.<\/p>\n
And extending his contract.<\/p>\n
At its June 23 meeting, SUSD\u2019s governing board voted 3-2 to give Superintendent Scott Menzel a raise from $225,000 to $245,000 per year.<\/p>\n
His three-year contract that was to expire June 30, 2027, was extended to 2029.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Menzel will continue to receive a $20,000 \u201ctax-sheltered annuity,\u201d or TSA, annual retirement pay.<\/p>\n
The contract was discussed privately, followed by a public vote.<\/p>\n
Three board members wholeheartedly supported the raise\/extension; two were against it.<\/p>\n
Following a revolving door of SUSD superintendents, Menzel has been the district leader since mid-2020.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
While Carine Werner did not comment on her vote against, Amy Carney gave an extensive basis for her \u201cno\u201d vote.<\/p>\n
She said her vote \u201cis based on performance, accountability and the financial realities facing our district \u2026 Enrollments declined by approximately 6,000 students over the past decade, resulting in ongoing budget pressures and difficult decisions about closing and consolidating neighborhood schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd at the same time, district academic performance indicators, including ACT scores, are still declining this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carney added Menzel \u201creceived a lower evaluation score from the board than he received in previous years \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe contract extensions should be earned through demonstrated results when academic goals have not been met over a long span of time and the district is operating in a season of budget deficits \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cIn most organizations,\u201d Carney concluded, \u201cdeclining performance would not earn you additional compensation or a lengthened contract.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matt Pittinsky countered with why he supported Menzel\u2019s raise\/extension.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a reminder,\u201d he began, \u201cSUSD had seven superintendents in the 12 years preceding Dr. Menzel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe level of instability that that creates is indescribable. I think under Dr. Menzel’s leadership, we’re in the midst of several critical initiatives, all of which are multi-year, and he deserves the opportunity \u2013 and we need his leadership and his expertise to see them through.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pittinsky cited student retention and \u201cone of the lowest turnover rates in our teaching staff of any district in Arizona.\u201d<\/p>\n
Board president Donna Lewis and Mike Sharkey also enthusiastically endorsed Menzel in explaining their \u201cyes\u201d votes for extension\/raise.<\/p>\n
On June 9, the same 3-2 vote approved a $14,850 bonus for SUSD Superintendent Scott Menzel.<\/p>\n
The new contract does not provide performance pay in the first year, with \u201c$5,000 (in) subsequent years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Budget passes<\/strong><\/p>\n Early in the meeting, the board heard a final presentation \u2013 the last of many \u2013 on the 2026-27 budget.<\/p>\n The big challenge, Shannon Crosier, the district\u2019s Chief Financial Officer, noted\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEnrollment continues to decline.\u201d<\/p>\n But, she noted, \u201cflexibility in funds, \u201cadditional state funding, and expenditure reductions have allowed the district to present a balanced fiscal year 2026-27 budget.\u201d<\/p>\n The kicker: the $398 budget funds operations \u201cwhile reducing the tax rate for taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>\n The district\u2019s current $3.23 per $100,000 of assessment falls to $3.13 per $100,000 in the 2026-27 school year.<\/p>\n That translates to $1,878 for a house assessed by Maricopa County at $600,000.<\/p>\n The district\u2019s property tax has fallen every year since 2022, when it was $3.34 per $100,000.<\/p>\n The soon-to-expire SUSD budget is just over $400 million, with the maintenance and operations (\u201cM&O\u201d) portion of the budget at $188.3 million, a 2.5% decrease from the current year\u2019s $193.2 million.<\/p>\n The 2026-27 M&O climbs back up to $192 million, despite school closures.<\/p>\n Crossier noted \u201c85-86% of our budget is salary and benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n The 2026-27 budget includes an average teacher salary of $72,309, a 3% increase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though the cash strapped Scottsdale Unified School District is losing students and closing schools, the district is lowering…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":904990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,165352,5643,1587,92783,205363,240279,205364,1589,151503,7600,25535,366272,25540,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-904989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-phoenix","tag-america","tag-amy-carney","tag-arizona","tag-az","tag-carine-werner","tag-matt-pittinsky","tag-matthew-pittinsky","tag-mike-sharkey","tag-phoenix","tag-scott-menzel","tag-scottsdale","tag-scottsdale-unified-school-district","tag-shannon-crosier","tag-susd","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116843682947129768","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904989","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=904989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/904990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}