GESD joins lawsuit to challenge Arizona school funding

Worn down buildings and outdated equipment were among the reasons the GESD Governing Board voted to join in a lawsuit challenging Arizona's finance system for education.

The Glendale Elementary School District Governing Board agreed tonight to join in a lawsuit against the State of Arizona contending that the state’s current system for financing schools is unconstitutional because it fails to provide adequate capital funding for public schools.

GESD was approached by the Center for Arizona Law In the Public Interests (ACLPI) and its lead attorney Tim Hogan to join in the suit because the District has significant capital needs and is a good example of how legislative cuts to capital funding negatively impact school districts. Since 2009, GESD has seen budget reductions of almost $19 million.

“We have not approached this lawsuit cavalierly,” said Superintendent Joe Quintana. “Glendale Elementary has urgent capital needs — to refurbish schools that were designed for education in the 70s, to fix buildings that are sinking, and to upgrade or replace school buildings in need of repair— and the state has failed to provide GESD and districts across the state with the funding necessary to maintain our facilities at a minimum standard.

“As a District, we cannot in good conscience sit back and do nothing as our students are denied the tools and facilities they deserve and need to meet ever increasing achievement standards. Our students deserve better, safer schools, and our teachers deserve better working conditions. This is the first step in getting that for them.”

“It’s time for us to stand up for kids and lead that charge,” said Assistant Superintendent for Business and Auxiliary Services Mike Barragan.

“We owe it to our community and kids to be part of this,” said Governing Board President Mary Ann Wilson before calling for the vote.

In addition to the failure to provide necessary funding to maintain minimum standards at school, the lawsuit will also claim that the minimum standards adopted by the School Facilities Board in 1999, and subsequently frozen by the legislature, are outdated and need to be revised. The suit, which will be brought at no cost to GESD or District taxpayers, seeks to have Arizona’s school funding system declared unconstitutional and will request that the court direct the state to provide funding that will allow school districts to meet minimum standards.

Hogan and ACLPI won a similar lawsuit, Roosevelt v. Bishop, in 1991. In response the legislature developed Students FIRST, that established minimum standards for school building, facilities and equipment necessary to support student achievement of state-mandated academic standards.

Students FIRST divided capital revenues into two camps: soft capital, which was used to provide short term items such as technology and books; and the building renewal fund, which was to provide schools with annual funding to improve school facilities based on the buildings’ age, size and previous renovations.

Soft capital, which originally provided school districts with $220 per student, was reduced and then eliminated and combined with other funds into something called district additional assistance (DAA). DAA is funded at a substantially lower rate than soft capital. In addition, while soft capital funds were required to be spent on capital items, DAA can be spent on either capital or operating expenses.

The legislature fully funded the building renewal formula just once in its 15 years of existence, and repealed it in 2013. Instead, the legislature has appropriated approximate $16 million yearly to the School Facilities Board (which oversaw the building renewal fund). That annual amount falls fall short of the more the $500 million some estimate school districts require.

“The legislature had totally reneged on the commitment that it made to the Supreme Court at the time Students FIRST was presented for approval by the court,” Hogan wrote in a summary of the lawsuit and its intent for GESD. “It has eliminated basically all funding that accompanied Students FIRST to the point that we are in pretty much exactly the same position we were in 1991 when we filed the Roosevelt case. School districts are quickly developing into the haves and the have nots, although there are more of the have nots and less of the haves than there were before.”