About 1,500 students in the Glendale Elementary School District start weeks of shortened classes Thursday after safety concerns forced the temporary closure of two campuses.
Crews recently discovered damage to the walls of buildings on the Challenger and Landmark school campuses, which lead engineers to question if they’re structurally sound.
Cash for maintaining campus buildings comes from Arizona's capital expenditure formula. But a Glendale Elementary School District spokesman said its capital budget has been slashed by about 90 percent since 2008.
The situation in Glendale is a "wake-up call" for the state, said Chuck Essigs, director of governmental relations for the Arizona Association of School Business Officials.
“To realize the fact that additional monies need to be invested in the facilities that schools have before other major problems like this pop up,” Essigs said.
Preventing similar situations is key for Arizona’s image, Essigs said. Huge drops in state revenue during the recession left lawmakers with little choice but to cut school districts’ capital budgets.
Essigs estimated the reductions have cost the Glendale Elementary School District about $20 million in the last five years, and he hopes the Arizona Legislature will restore at least some of the funding in 2017.
“They need to take the additional revenues that are coming in, maybe delay some of their tax cuts, or maybe do something to make sure the dollars are there so schools can catch up,” Essigs said.
