The Financial Clock is Ticking Again on Arizona’s Public Schools

Here we go again.

For the second year in a row, Governor Doug Ducey and the Republicans in the Arizona State Legislature are fiddling while the financial prospects of Arizona Public Schools increasingly become perilous because many of these anti-public school members will not hold a vote to suspend or outright repeal the Aggregate Expenditure Limit to allow the Grand Canyon state’s K-12 educational institutions to spend the money the state promised them in last years budget.

In a letter to the leaders of the State Legislature, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman, now that school budgets for the 2022/23 year have been finalized, that K-12 institutions face the prospect of being cut off from $1.38 billion in needed funds to educate children.

Hoffman AEL Letter Nov 2022\

Commenting in an Arizona Department of Education press release, Superintendent Hoffman, largely repeating her words from last year when the Republicans procrastinated until suspending the CAP in the last session, wrote:

“If we fail to lift the cap, students attending district schools will undoubtedly see larger class sizes, school closures, layoffs, and an even worse teacher shortage crisis. The time to solve this issue is now. It is time for state leaders to stop playing politics with school budgets, and instead give certainty to educators and families by calling a special session to lift the cap immediately.”

Later on social media, she posted:

Today I formally notified our legislative leaders that district schools face a $1.38 billion cut should they fail to lift the Aggregate Expenditure Limit spending cap.

We cannot put the academic recovery of our students at risk because of an outdated policy. pic.twitter.com/J4C8S2z8BA

— Kathy Hoffman (@Supt_Hoffman) November 1, 2022

The Superintendent is right.

It is time to stop endangering children’s futures by holding public school funding hostage and playing politics with it.

It is time to call a special session to suspend the AEL or totally repeal it.

Voters should also realize that while public school children’s education is being allowed to twist in the wind by Mr. Ducey and many of the Republican legislators, parents who send their children to private schools at the taxpayer’s expense with no accountability whatsoever.

It is time to elect pro-education candidates to the Legislature and Governors office while reflecting Kathy Hoffman to a second term.

That way, the Aggregate Expenditure Limit will hopefully, finally, become a relic of the past.

Please remember to turn out and vote on November 8, 2022, if you did not mail in your ballot yesterday.

Your child’s education may depend on it.