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ARIZONA CAPITOL TIMES CONTRIBUTING ARTICLE
BY GARY GRADO
Chuck Essigs: Arizona’s School Finance Guru
With the passage of Prop. 123, what’s
GARY GRADO
gary.grado@azcapitoltimes.com a school nance guy to do now?
Most of the school districts are saying, and the business
huck Essigs came to Arizona in 1972 with community, and the governor, is that Prop. 123 was a first step
plans to stay no more than a year to get in the right direction, but there are many more steps that
an advanced degree. He got hooked need to be taken. People need to realize that Prop. 123
C on the Valley of the Sun, though, was not to settle and fix all the problems in school
and has been helping to shape the state’s funding in Arizona, it was to settle a lawsuit about
school nance formula ever since. Essigs, inflation funding, and it did that.
a lobbyist with Arizona Association of
School Business Officials, worked 19 So, what is step two and step
years as the numbers-cruncher for the three and so on?
Mesa Uni ed School District, the state’s
largest school district, and another 10 as I know the Greater Phoenix Leadership has Project
the director of school nance and special 345 and they’re looking at what are the next steps
education at the Arizona Department that are needed to make education and to bring
of Education. at makes him the go-to education to the level in Arizona people want it to
guy for anyone with questions about school be. I’m very optimistic about where Arizona is going,
nance. because I see for the first time in many, many years the
education community being very supportive of wanting
Has public education funding better schools and making the connection between
always been so complicated better schools mean a better economy.
in Arizona?
Most school districts gave their
I don’t believe Arizona’s much more complicated teachers and staff pay raises
than the rest of the country. It’s one of those things with Prop. 123 money — at
where people want a very simple system, but least anecdotally that seems to
public schools in Arizona and the nation are very be the case — but some school
complicated. You have districts in Arizona with
less than 100 students to districts like the Mesa districts used it for capital and
school district that have 60,000. You have districts they seem to be getting some
in communities that have huge tax bases like the criticism and extra scrutiny from
Palo Verde nuclear power plant and you have some the press. What would you say to
reservation districts that have hardly any property those critics?
to tax. So, I think the school funding formula has I think you need to look at it over a two to three year period
to address a very complicated system of needs of time. The first funding that districts got from Prop. 123
and schools that vary tremendously. It would be was provided for fiscal year 2016, which was almost over.
nice to have one very simple system that addresses They got the money in the last month of fiscal year 2016,
everybody’s problems and situations, but that’s not true and they got a full year for the first time in fiscal year 2017,
in Arizona, that’s not true across the rest of the country.
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