Ballots still left to count on MUSD override

Results of the vote on the MUSD override bill will have to wait another day or two.

As of Tuesday night, the ‘No’ votes were winning by a margin of 3,471 to 3,340.  In most of the districts, the vote was close, but in Thunderbird Farms, the measure was cut down 201-78.

The override allows the district to exceed its budget by 10%, or about $5 million per year based on current spending. Those funds have a big impact on education in the city, according to MUSD Superintendent Tracey Lopeman.

“That $5 million equates to about 70 teachers and counselors,” she said “Most of the funding goes to (salaries). Also, $500,000 goes to the RAM Academy and $500,000 to technology, for which the last override helped meet the district’s 1:1 goal of a laptop for every student and teacher.”

Lopeman has stressed that the district would never have been able to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic as well as it did without having a laptop for every student and teacher in the district. That allowed MUSD to provide distance learning throughout the school shutdowns and quarantining caused by the disease.

All five members of MUSD’s governing board and all seven City Council members back the measure. Supporters of the override have stressed that it is not a new tax, but a continuation of an existing tax approved by Maricopa voters five years ago.

Proposition 457 would take effect for the 2022-23 school year.