ARIZONA STATE SENATE
Phoenix, Arizona
Retroactive to July 1, 2000,
eliminates maximum override limits for a unified school district that is in the
seventh year of a revenue control limit budget override where revenues are not
funded from property taxes.
Current law allows voters in
a school district to vote for the adoption of a budget in excess of the revenue
control limit. Additionally, the maximum budget override amount is ten percent,
notwithstanding any supplemental guidelines. These overrides are not funded by
property tax revenues, but with money already paid to the school district from
state, county and federal impact aid.
Current statute requires
school districts to phase down budget override amounts during the last two
years of an override. During the sixth year, the district receives two-thirds
of the original percentage approved for the budget override, losing an additional
third of that original percentage in the seventh year (ARS 15-481).
According to the Arizona
Department of Education (ADE), Chinle Unified School District (Chinle USD) is
the only district affected by S.B. 1086. Due to an administrative oversight,
Chinle USD did not request an election to renew its override in FY 1999-2000 or
FY 2000-2001, according to the school district. As a result, the school
district was unaware of the budget reduction when adopting its budget for the
last two years and expended the school budget beyond capacity by approximately
$700,000. Consequently, Chinle USD is required to cut its budget by $1.4
million to compensate for the expenditure beyond capacity. According to current
statute, when a school district overspends its budget in the prior year, the
school district must also reduce the current year’s budget to reflect the
previous year’s overexpenditure. As a result, Chinle USD anticipates reducing
this year’s budget by $2.1 million with an expectation to overspend again this
year.
S.B. 1086, retroactive to
July 1, 2000, eliminates the override phase down for school districts that are
in the seventh year of the budget override where overrides are not funded by
property taxes within the school district. This bill has no estimated fiscal
impact to the state general fund, according to the Joint Legislative Budget
Committee staff fiscal note.
1. Exempts a unified school district in the seventh year of a revenue control limit budget override where revenues are not funded by property taxes from budget override decreases during FY 2000-2001 and FY 2001-2002 when the following apply:
(a)
The
original overrides approved by voters of the school district were for the
maximum percentage available when the overrides were approved.
(b)
At
least 75 percent of the voters of the school district approved the override.
(c)
The
school district did not request, and the voters did not disapprove, either of
the budget overrides.
2. Contains a retroactive effective date of July 1, 2000.
Prepared by Senate Staff
February 4, 2002