PHOENIX — Because Arizona communities could be leery of possible mergers of elementary and high school districts for financial reasons, the state should reinstate recently discarded incentives for newly unified districts, members of a state commission said Thursday.
The School District Redistricting Commission took that stance Thursday as it reviewed its unification proposals for dozens of districts across the state.
With possible added costs to equalize employee pay scales and make other changes if districts merge, "I don't see their incentive to do any of it," said commissioner Joseph Thomas, a Mesa Unified School District teacher who urged reinstatement of the incentives.
The commission must provide assurances that unification won't produce added costs for districts, said commissioner Thomas Schoaf, who is Litchfield Park's mayor and a former school board member.
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Commission Chairman Martin Shultz, a utility company executive and lobbyist, noted that only one merger in the Kingman area of Mohave County qualified for the since-repealed incentives that provided districts with temporary, post-merger increases in state funding.
That turned off key legislators, Shultz said. "They said the time for incentives is over," he said.
The commission was formed under a 2005 state law creating the appointed panel to recommend mergers of elementary and high school districts into unified districts. Advocates said unifying districts can save money on administrative costs and promote seamless integration of schools' academics programs.
The commission is considering a variety of proposals that include merging arrays of districts in and around such cities as Phoenix, Casa Grande, Yuma and Tempe as well as numerous rural parts of the state.
Proposals for Casa Grande, Yuma and Tempe call for merging various combinations of districts into new unified districts, while one proposal being eyed for the Phoenix Unified School District would split it into five new unified districts that would include numerous feeder elementary districts.
Glendale Elementary School District residents would get "hammered" by higher taxes under a two-district proposal to split the Glendale Union High School District into two new unified districts because the one based on Glendale Elementary would lack an adequate property tax base to support high schools, Glendale Elementary business manager Kevin Hagerty said.
Commissioners were told that several districts in western Mohave County are already exploring whether to split the Colorado River Union High School District into two new unified districts with Bullhead City and Mohave Valley elementary districts.
Current unified districts would largely be unaffected by the commission's recommendations, which would be subject to voter approval in affected districts. The commission plans meetings in January and February to complete work on its recommendations.
"The commission must provide assurances that unification won't produce added costs for districts."
Thomas Schoaf, member of School District Redistricting Commission
