Voters approve MUSD override – unofficially

With counting nearly complete, the Maricopa Unified School District budget override has passed by a slim margin – at least unofficially.

In counting that concluded Thursday afternoon, unofficial results show 4,200 ‘Yes’ votes, or 50.46%, and 4,124, or 49.54% for ‘No’ on Proposition 457, which would continue the 10% budget override approved by the district’s voters in 2016. According to interim Pinal County Elections Director Stephanie Cooper, there are still ballots that have to be cured, which is the matching of signatures or verifying of ballots that did not have a signature on the ballot envelope.

“Nothing is official until the canvas on Nov. 12,” Cooper said. “But there are only 20 ballots remaining to be cured.”

With a margin of 76 votes in favor of the override and just 20 uncured ballots remaining, the results are all but final.

“I’ll let you do the math on that one,” Cooper said. “As I mentioned, the results on the site now are unofficial, and nothing is official until the canvas.”

By law, Cooper said county election officials must give voters 72 hours after the election to cure their votes before ballots become official.

Although the results are unofficial, City Council member Vince Manfredi said he sees its passage as good for the city.

“The people of Maricopa have spoken,” Manfredi said. “Although it was a tight race, I think MUSD has proven it can utilize these funds to continue the successes we have seen since 2016. These funds have made our district much more attractive by lowering class sizes, and it was huge for us in getting through COVID by giving every student and teacher a laptop so we could conduct remote learning while schools closed. This has been a winner all the way around.”

Voters were deciding whether to continue to allow 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.

— Vincent Manfredi is part of the ownership group of InMaricopa Magazine.