Local opinion: TUSD must provide more detail on its $807M budget

At the Aug. 11 board meeting, I voted no on Revision #1 of the FY2026-2027 Annual Expenditure Budget because the board and public were only given the Auditor General’s revised forms and not the “Budget Book,” as it has been called since at least 2012.

TUSD’s Budget Book is a highly detailed, more than 200-page accounting of the district’s expenses that can be searched by school, department, staff position, and more. The board and public were consistently provided with it for years until 2024, when CFO Ricardo Hernandez began omitting it from the board agenda.

This is not the first disagreement I have had with Hernandez regarding the Budget Book, and so I was surprised when he said in the Aug. 13 article, “TUSD Board Raises District Budget to $807 Million,” that neither I nor the board had ever given him direction. I have consistently requested information from Hernandez and other staff at meetings, both for myself and on behalf of members of the public during Call to the Audience.

Furthermore, I have requested the traditional Budget Book since Hernandez began omitting it two years ago, starting with the Aug. 13, 2024, public hearing and subsequent approval of Revision #1 of the FY25 Expenditure Budget. After the meeting, Hernandez notified the board via email on Aug. 30, 2024, that publication of the new Budget Book, hosted on the ClearGov platform, had been delayed because it was incomplete. We approved the Expenditure Budget at that time and the following year in good faith that the information would be provided later.

So after going through this same back-and-forth with our CFO again during this year’s annual expenditure budget revision process, I finally decided to vote no. His statement that “other than this budget book, there hasn’t really been any real feedback from any board member, frankly including Ms. Shaw,” followed by the explanation that “he didn’t want to assume the board wanted a return to the format used by the former executive director of finance,” is confounding.

How can the CFO of a district as large as TUSD take a “less is more” approach and so casually abandon the longstanding practice of providing the board and public with some form of a Budget Book? A PowerPoint and the Auditor General’s revised forms are not sufficient.

Why does this matter?

Pursuant to A.R.S. § 15-905, a public hearing on the annual budget is required before the board votes. At public hearings, members of the public may ask for explanations of items contained within the budget, request further explanation from TUSD staff, and protest the inclusion of items in the budget. But without the Budget Book, there can’t be meaningful oversight by the board or the public.

An $807 million budget for FY27 is no laughing matter and should not be approved without adequate information. I would think Hernandez would be striving to provide as much information as possible, or at the very least, necessary, considering that TUSD was designated one of the districts at greatest financial risk by the Arizona Auditor General.

The bottom line is that providing the board and the public with detailed information about our expenses is fundamental to fiscal oversight. It is what voters expect when the City of Tucson and Pima County approve their budgets, and it should be no different in TUSD.

As we approach the election of two new members to the board, I hope the candidates are as committed as I am to making sure our district is fiscally transparent, accountable, and compliant.

Because in a time when the district’s financial position is as unstable as it is, providing the board and public with a detailed accounting of the district’s expenses when approving our budget and subsequent revisions should be mandatory. And if I had the votes, it would be.