'They broke that deal': Schools advocate says Arizona budget hurt this type of education funding

Poverty weight, or opportunity weight funding, is granted to schools based on the number of kids they have enrolled who qualify for free and reduced price lunch.
 
Chris Kotterman works for the Arizona School Boards Association, a non-partisan group that provides services to public school governing boards. He said those dollars were established in 2022, following years of advocacy.

“So if you’re investing in programs for lower socioeconomic students like all day kindergarten or after school programs or extra tutoring or whatever it is, now you’re getting more dollars from the state to serve those students,” Kotterman said.

An initial $50 million was approved, with the understanding, Kotterman said, that it would be increased over time. And an additional $37 million was supposed to be granted as part of ongoing state funding this year.

“So they were gonna say, "we need to increase the weight by another amount so that we generate an additional $37 million worth of costs and then that would be permanent going forward,” Kotterman said. “So going forward, the weight will be what it is, if new students qualify, then they’ll get funded at that higher level.”

Instead, the Legislature did not increase the weight per student and just awarded the $37 million as one-time funding. That means schools will still get the money this year, but if the Legislature doesn’t re-appropriate that money in fiscal 2026, it will drop off.

Kotterman said that will impact the way districts choose to spend those funds.

“Because the worst thing you can do as a school business official is allocate one-time dollars to fund ongoing expenses and then have to make big cuts,” he said.

'That just helps us supply those basics'

The Pendergast Elementary School District in Phoenix serves about 7,500 students. A significant portion of them qualify for free and reduced price lunch.

Martín Quezada is a former Democratic state senator and current member of that district’s governing board. He said poverty weight funding goes into their maintenance and operations budget.

“That’s mostly salaries, supplies, you know, just the basic things that make that school run,” Quezada said. “So when we get that extra funding, that just helps us supply those basics and basics really means people.”

Without it, salaries are lower, or schools can’t afford to hire enough staff to meet students’ needs.

Quezada said if the district knew they were going to have more long-term funding, they could also make bigger changes.

“When we’re dealing with really complex, multi-faceted problems, you have to try new things sometimes and when you don’t have the funding to back that up, that limits our ability to even try new things and when you aren’t able to try new things, you aren’t able to sometimes stumble upon really great solutions,” Quezada said.

So why did state lawmakers shift poverty weight funding from an ongoing to a one-time expense with no guarantees going forward?

Budget gimmick or broken promise?

Gage Skidmore/CC BY 2.0

“Budget gimmicks is the answer,” state Sen. Ken Bennett said.

The Legislature tries to not only budget for the upcoming year, but project spending two years out, and in order to keep the projected cash balances positive in those out years, Bennett said.

“Sometimes you use the classification of funding as being one time or ongoing to not show those amounts in the baseline spending going forward, when in fact you’re planning to fund it in those out years anyway," Bennett said.

Bennett is part of the Republican majority at the Legislature that negotiated this year’s budget with Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. He said providing funding for poverty weights is not a partisan issue.

“I’m not aware of any decision or conscientious position that Republicans in the senate or the house or the Legislature are taking to say, ‘oh we don’t want to fund poverty weight,’” Bennett said.

But where he sees a budget gimmick, some public school advocates see a broken promise.

When the Legislature passed a universal expansion of school vouchers in 2022, according to Kotterman, increased funding for public schools was used as a bargaining chip.

“That deal was made because certain legislators said, ‘if you want my vote for ESA expansion, you’re going to put more money into K-12 education on the public side, it’s only fair.’ They made that deal and now they broke that deal,” Kotterman said.

Bennett said Republicans and Democrats are always going to argue over whether public schools have too much or not enough state funds.