The Tucson Unified School District is holding off on pursuing a bond election that, if successful, could have pumped millions of dollars into campus repairs, upgrades and safety features.
Saying that the timing is not right to ask voters to approve a tax increase, TUSD Superintendent H.T. Sanchez said the district will revisit the effort in 2017.
“We felt that we got really good feedback from parents when we did focus groups that there was a desire to go out for a bond,” Sanchez said. “But as we went out into the business community and asked for their advice, they felt that what we were putting forward looked good and made sense but everyone we talked to felt this probably wasn’t the right time or the right atmosphere.”
That advice, according to Sanchez, was based on the fact that Prop. 123, an education funding initiative that went to voters in May, was narrowly approved across the state but did not fare well with Southern Arizona voters. Add to that the failure of a county bond initiative last November and Sanchez was told that it would be best to separate the district's initiative from those two efforts.
“The advice we got from people who know this work was when you strike out twice, you don’t want to be the third one,” he said.
The district worked for months, developing a list of necessary repairs and conducting focus groups and surveys to identify what parents, students, teachers and community members want for schools.
Proposed improvements included enhanced science labs, performing arts spaces, multipurpose rooms and libraries; creating technology hubs; and other renovations.
While a successful bond election would have been the fastest way to pay for the repairs and improvements, TUSD can draw from proceeds from the sale of closed schools to address immediate needs like replacing air conditioning units that are beyond repair and old boilers that the district can no longer get replacement parts for, not even on Craigslist, Sanchez said.
The state’s school facilities board also approved funding for roofing projects and other repairs that the district will take on.
TUSD also allocated more than $5 million of Prop. 123 funds to purchase technology, textbooks, instructional materials and to cover other capital needs, although Sanchez says dipping into that money is a last resort.
By addressing what it can now, Sanchez says that may allow TUSD to decrease what it ultimately will ask taxpayers to fund when a bond election is pursued.
The TUSD Governing Board also approved a refinancing initiative for about $70 million worth of bonds from 2004, which will create a savings of about $8 million for taxpayers.
“We’ll hit the high-need areas but it’s still triage mode,” Sanchez said of the interim plan. “It’s not something that’s long-range and sustainable, and it only gets you so far, so we’ll have to re-enter the bond conversation. We’re not shelving it forever.”
