Thatcher School District budget override fails

By Diane Saunders
Staff Writer
Published on Wednesday, November 4, 2009 10:43 AM MST

Thatcher School District voters voted down the capital budget override by a 64-vote margin Tuesday, according to preliminary results released by Graham County.

Now, the school district may have to delay adding classrooms and find another way to pay for major repairs.

County Elections Director Judy Dickerson said the election results are preliminary and a final tally will not be available until later in the week.

The preliminary results show the override failed by a vote of 299 against the override and 235 in favor. With 15 provisional ballots and about 45 early ballots left to count and verify, there is little chance the election's outcome would change — based on the figures released by the county Tuesday night.

The school district sought to exceed its capital budget by $500,000 a year for the next three years. This extra money was earmarked for additional classrooms and major repairs to roofs and windows at Jack Dailey Primary School and Thatcher Elementary School.

The money was to come from the district's cash account. Arizona law prohibits school districts from spending money in their cash accounts unless they receive permission from voters via a budget override election.

There was a slim possibility of a property tax increase as a "worse case scenario," if the override passed, Thatcher Schools Superintendent Paul Nelson said prior to the election.

Nelson said some voters may not have understood that there was no property tax increase planned to fund the override.

Without the additional funding, "We'll have to piecemeal things until we can fix them right," Nelson said.

Read the Sunday, Nov. 8 edition of the Courier for the final election results.

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Comments

8 comment(s)

To for the Children wrote on Nov 9, 2009 12:37 PM:

" If you only knew what you were talking about. The money is already there but cannot be spent without approval from the voters. Thatcher was within their budget and actualy saved money that the Stae could come in and sweep it away for their use since we are not using it. There are some district that do not have this money in reserve and therefore the taxes will increase. As stated Thatcher had most if not all of this money already so your taxes would have had very little increase if any increase at all. The community also suffers. "

for the children wrote on Nov 7, 2009 7:22 AM:

" The public schools need to live within a budget and when they fail to, repeatedly, they bring out the "poor children" stories. Show us where every dollar goes and I'll show you how to recover that exact $500K that is so desparately needed. The nice round figure is another example of how casually we throw out a bill. Why not $427K or a specific number. Nah just cash us out in 1/2 million dollar chips. "

Educator wrote on Nov 6, 2009 7:33 PM:

" This money would not have increasee taxes. It comes from money already in the capital account which has to be approved by the taxpayers in an override election in order to be spent for expenses such as school repairs. Perhaps voters need to be better educated on the school budget system? If I were a Thatcher voter, the override would have my vote. Instead, I live in Safford...darn it! "

What a Shame wrote on Nov 5, 2009 2:32 PM:

" This overide was not about paying people more money or adding more programs or even to maintain the programs already in place. It was simply to give the district the fundes needed to maintain and repair areas in the school that could pose dangers to our children. I know the economy is in bad shape, but people are still spending hundreds of dollars on fast food and entertainment. Heaven forbid we spend it on our childrens school buildings. Our children will still recieve a quality education no matter what the building looks like. Our Teachers Care!! "

Sports are a plus wrote on Nov 5, 2009 10:56 AM:

" 'tired of THS sports' has no idea what he/she is saying. Sports can be a great thing for an individual student. He/she must not have athletes in thier family tree. Getting rid of sports is not a way to free up dollars for building repairs. "

tired of THS Sports wrote on Nov 5, 2009 9:18 AM:

" Maybe if Thatcher dropped some of their sports, they's have money to fix their classrooms. You don't need to have sports 12 months of the year. "

you know wrote on Nov 4, 2009 3:50 PM:

" I bet if parents recieved a notice of the damges and the cost to fix them a bunch would come out to donate time and money to help raise the money. You should fix what is already broken before you add new class rooms. I know times are tough but I would give money to my childs school if it helped him. every little bit counts "

Some Dude wrote on Nov 4, 2009 10:56 AM:

" Perhaps the Town of Thatcher council could toss the school a bone. They were bragging about the millions in their coffers; seems like upkeep and repair on their schools would be a good use of said funds. I know, there are politics and lines of authority that must be crossed. I'm just suggesting that we all work together. "

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