Peoria School District's budget override back on ballot

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(The Center Square) – One of the largest school districts in Arizona is asking voters to extend a 30-year-old budget override this fall.

Peoria Unified School District in the Phoenix area is seeking support for its maintenance and operations override, Proposition 428, hoping to tack on another seven years of funding for teachers, staff and school programs.

The override funding is slated to provide PUSD with $32.8 million for fiscal year 2027-28, the final year of its current phase (which was last approved by voters in 2020), according to the district. The override money will expire in 2028-29 if it is not extended by voters on Nov. 3.

Proposition 428 continues the district’s property tax rate of $1.10 per $100,000 of assessed value. The district estimated owners with the average Peoria house value ($236,970) would see their property tax bills go up $261 per year if the override passes. 

Katie Ratlief, executive director of the Common Sense Institute of Arizona, said CSI Arizona’s research found the cost to homeowners would be $260.66 per year, roughly in line with what the district projects. 

“One of the things we always encourage voters to understand is that you want to make sure you have the full context of the entity that's asking you to either increase taxes or to continue a tax increase,” Ratlief told The Center Square.

Enrollment down in Peoria

That context for PUSD follows trends across Arizona and the U.S. at large when it comes to enrollment numbers.

In Peoria, there were 34,835 students in the system this school year, down 4.2% from where it stood five years ago and 4.1% from the 2016-17 school year.

Nationally, K-12 public schools have seen around a 3.8% drop in enrollment from 2019 to 2024, meaning PUSD is right in line with what the district’s peers are seeing.

But Peoria’s school budgets have swollen while class sizes have dwindled.

Between the 2021-22 school year and 2026-27, PUSD’s operating budget has increased by 30%, going from $213,083,599 to $277,083,400.

Ratlief said that shows the institutional support that K-12 school districts in Arizona have gotten of late from lawmakers and from Proposition 123, which has provided districts with $300 million per year in funding since it was passed in 2016.

District Public Relations Manager Sara Meredith told The Center Square that voters continuation of PUSD’s maintenance and operations override would help the district continue paying for free, all-day kindergarten, in addition to providing healthcare professionals, assistant principals and athletics programs at each of its 41 schools.

If Prop. 428 fails, cuts would have to be made because PUSD would lose $11 million in fiscal year 2028-29 without the 13% funding mechanism, Meredith said.

She said that means PUSD would have to start charging parents for access to its all-day kindergarten classes, while fees related to athletics and extracurricular activities and class sizes would go up as the latter two are funded in part by the override.

Meredith added that staff salaries would likely be reduced as well.