(The Center Square) – A Phoenix-area school district’s fate is at the mercy of numerous governmental bodies as it faces a roughly $20 million budget shortfall, as Arizona leaders try to figure out how to move forward.
Arizona Senate Education Committee Chair David Farnsworth said in a statement on Tuesday that if there ends up being state financial support to assist the district, there will need to be strings attached to ensure improved fiscal responsibility. The budget woes are putting the paychecks for educators and staff at risk, he said.
“I’m incredibly concerned by what’s transpired within the Isaac Elementary School District. My colleagues in both the Senate and House are investigating what led to the tremendous overspending and what legislative reforms we need to adopt to make certain a similar situation doesn’t happen in the future,” Farnsworth stated.
“What the State of Arizona won’t do is provide this school district a financial bailout without implementing any corrective policies. Doing so would only be a Band Aid on the wound and would most certainly do more harm than good,” he continued.
In the meantime, $6 million in federal taxpayer dollars from the United States Department of Education will go to the district as a last line of defense to keep the district afloat.
“The release of the federal dollars won’t come in time to make tomorrow’s payroll, but the legislature is meeting to come up with an emergency bill,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said in a statement on Monday.
“That bill would instruct the County to advance basic state aid funds and use them for salaries. The County has indicated they will use any funds to pay off debts and not for salaries, which means the whole district would collapse and 5,000 students would not get the education to which they are entitled. If the legislature orders the County to pay salaries, they will have to. If that does pass on an emergency basis, we will immediately send an advance on our basic state aid to the County to pay payroll.”
The developments come as Gov. Katie Hobbs said last week that Maricopa County was not doing enough to help the district as Maricopa County Board of Supervisor Chairman Thomas Galvin argued that it is not the county’s responsibility, according to the state constitution.
“At the State Board of Education hearing, the Maricopa County Treasurer stated that he would stop fulfilling warrant requests after January 21, limiting the district’s ability to maintain cashflow and pay critical expenditures including payroll. This has created significant uncertainty about whether the district will be able to make upcoming payments and maintain operations,” Hobbs tweeted last week.
However, Galvin responded by saying it’s beyond the county’s control as the district already took over $28.5 million in county funds with “no clear plan to repay.”
“Education is a state function under the Arizona Constitution, and counties are not authorized to provide a solution to the financial mismanagement of a school district,” he said in a statement, noting in a letter that “Maricopa County has extended every resource possible to the school district and is now at its statutory limit.”
District Superintendent Dr. Mario Ventura resigned last week, Arizona’s Family reported. There are roughly 5,000 students at the school, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.