Voters take note: A publicity pamphlet sent out by the Paradise Valley Unified School District might be misleading.


For Tuesday’s election, district officials compiled information and mailed pamphlets to residents in the district at a cost of roughly $46,000.

The "pro" and "con" statements are written by interested parties, but are not factchecked by anyone at the Maricopa County Elections Office, which printed the pamphlets, said Yvonne Reed, the office’s spokeswoman.

A new 13-member state commission is taking on the task of studying whether dozens of elementary and high school districts across Arizona should be combined into unified districts.


It's an issue that's proved too hot to handle before, but supporters hope changes from previous merger proposals may make any eventual unification recommendations more palatable to voters and local officials.

A recent article in the Arizona Capitol Times included a response from a community college spokesperson to a letter to legislators from the Arizona Tax Research Association (ATRA).


Kathy Boyle, executive director of the Arizona Community College Association (ACCA), said most of the classes listed in the ATRA letter are paid for by tuition and class fees, not state funding. (Lawmaker targets state funding of community college ‘fun’ courses, Nov. 11)

SIGNAL PEAK - The Central Arizona College Governing Board on Thursday approved a $38.2 million budget for 2006-07 that includes a slight reduction in the property tax rate.


The rate will drop from $2.10 per $100 net assessed value to $2.06.

Dennis Jenkins, CAC's vice president for finance and community development, said the rate would have dropped to $2.04, but the college has to pay its share of the Kinder-Morgan judgment after the Arizona Tax Court found that the pipeline company overpaid its property taxes for several years and must be paid back.

At least three questions remain unanswered eight years after Arizona changed the way it funds school construction.


What's good enough?

How much inequity is acceptable?

How do you pay the increasing costs?

It's time to talk about the answers.

But first, a nod to history.

From the political notebook:


Someone forgot to give Randy Pullen the memo, but in the modern political era, political parties are not truly independent political forces. They exist primarily as vehicles for the conduct of certain political tasks for the party's officeholders and candidates.

In today's political world, a political party chairman has only two real functions: raise money and say patently ridiculous things about the other side.

With just three weeks to go until the new fiscal year, most taxpayers have yet to hear how much they’ll be paying to support East Valley classrooms. School taxes are typically the largest portion of a homeowner’s tax bill. Public education eats up 46 percent of the state budget.


Yet most school districts wait until the end of June to make their proposed budgets public — giving residents just two weeks to offer input on how their tax dollars will be spent to educate children.

The Arizona Tax Research Association (ATRA) released some community college per-student cost figures in July stating that Yavapai College is the highest in Arizona.


Bob Lynch, chief financial officer for Yavapai College, said school officials know the college is among the highest on full-time student equivalent (FTSE) cost.

Despite increased state funding for education in recent years, school districts remain dependent on having budget overrides — and asking voters to pay for the costly habit.


In just about every election cycle there are East Valley school districts asking voters to approve or renew a budget override, a boost to the budget paid for through a secondary property tax.

Recent stories regarding next Tuesday's school override and bond elections have included claims from a school-district campaign consultant that recent homeowner property taxes increased because "business taxes went down while homeowner taxes went up." This misdirection merits a response.


In recent years, the Legislature did indeed enact changes to business property-tax calculations. However, the impact of those changes on homeowners was addressed in a number of ways.