The state must pay more to help Tucson Unified School District buy and repair its school buses, which drive 20,000 students a day and cover 2.8 million miles per year, a judge ruled on Wednesday.
Repairing and replacing buses within the 330-vehicle fleet — which has expanded routes this year — should be funded at least in part by the state, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled this week as part of a decision that says Arizona’s funding structure for public schools’ capital needs is unconstitutional and must be reformed.
Maintaining those buses is one example of the inadequate and unconstitutional underfunding for Arizona’s public schools — which, according to the court, requires the legislature to pay more money to school districts for building maintenance, purchasing adequate equipment and more.
In a 114-page ruling released Wednesday, Judge Dewain Fox said the state has failed to provide money for legally required improvements.
“The Court concludes that the current public-school capital finance system does not meet the constitutional minimum standards established by the Arizona Supreme Court,” Judge Fox wrote in the ruling.
Arizona public school districts saw a $3 billion shortfall with no adjustment for inflation from the state in district additional assistance between 2009-2022, according to the judge. And restoring the funding formula in subsequent years has not “resolved the district’s capital needs,” the ruling says.
The capital funding TUSD gets is not enough to maintain the current bus fleet without failed air conditioning and breakdowns, the judge wrote in the ruling. The district instead spends “more and more money to replace part after part” on the aged fleet, the ruling said.
In TUSD, the state’s third-largest district with more than 40,000 students at 88 schools, the issue boils down to “an inherently inadequate funding formula,” said Chief Financial Officer Ricky Hernández.
The consistent underfunding has created a wider gap between districts in more affluent areas, which can supplement inadequate state funding with voter-approved bonds, and districts in more rural areas or those that struggle to get a bond passed.
Bond money comes from bond sales and is repaid over time. It can fund new schools, building and safety improvements, technology and buses. In November 2023, voters approved TUSD’s 10-year, $480 million bond measure to renovate aging schools and update security and safety systems, technology and vehicles. The district also uses supplemental money to fund these needs.
“We are talking textbooks, tech, school buildings, support buildings, food buildings, bus barns, administration buildings and more,” Hernández said. “The moment we put someone’s child on a bus, we take responsibility for their safety.
“Yet, how do we calculate the importance in dollars of a student’s textbook and the student having a functioning toilet in their school,” he asked. “They need a functioning restroom as much as they need a textbook to learn. Those are the difficult decisions.”
The ruling says some of the most basic student needs are unmet. But Arizona House Speaker Steve Montenegro said Wednesday he will appeal, maintaining what Republican leaders have said since the lawsuit was filed in 2017: The state should not pay more for school maintenance. The case is likely to go on for years.
“That they are going to appeal just to drag this out rather than find the money to reverse this is gross,” said Arizona state Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, a former Tucson High School teacher.
“I have personally dealt with the district not having money to fix the air conditioning and I know how that feels as a teacher,” she told Arizona Luminaria. “My perfect solution is to cap the voucher program and that money would go right to schools for capital improvements.”
An example of how underfunding affects students and schools includes Cochise County’s Bowie Unified School District, which has about 65 students in grades K-12 and three buildings that need new roofs at a combined cost of about $4 million. Trash cans and buckets are placed to catch leaky rainwater. The high school, built in 1922, has 17 identified leaks, causing damage to the walls and ceilings, the ruling said.
The ruling also cited needed upgrades in the Amphitheater Public Schools that lasted for years and then exposed the district to liability.
“The Amphitheater School District had to wait from 2015 to 2024 to get a roof replaced and to complete the weatherization of a high school building,” the ruling says. “As a result, the building ended up with mold, and the district is a defendant in an ongoing class-action lawsuit for exposure to the mold.”
Although the ruling does not name the school involved, a 2023 class-action lawsuit in Pima County Superior Court involves Ironwood Ridge High School, according to public records.
Amphitheater Public Schools did not return calls from Arizona Luminaria for comment.
Wear and tear on TUSD buses will continue, as routes expanded this school year to make bus service reachable within a mile of a student’s home instead of 2.5 miles.
“We shrunk the walking distance between home and school and expanded the universe of kids that can pick up a school bus,” Hernández said. “We are making a school bus available to every kid who needs one.”
Four questions with: TUSD’s Aaron Cañez
Minutes before he attended an evening midtown meeting Tuesday, Aaron Cañez stood on the roof of Secrist Middle School on the east side.
It was 102 degrees and Cañez — a TUSD facilities management manager overseeing HVAC, preventative maintenance and energy management control systems — was monitoring air conditioning work at the TUSD school. That’s how he’s spent most of the first two weeks of this school year.
As temperatures soared last week, aging schools felt the heat and AC’s throughout the district struggled to keep up with demand — in some cases failing.
This makes Cañez and his 25-member team vital. The nearly 30-year TUSD veteran reflected on his work — including some weekends and nights — and the perfect temperature for him.
Q: What’s the best part of your job?
Seeing the kids when they’re smiling, when you walk into the classroom, and you got the AC going and they’re thanking you.
Q: What’s the toughest day for you?
When you’re not able to fix the AC and you know that teachers have to move a class. You see the struggles of the teacher, you know, you see the struggles of the student. Every year. They have everything set up for their classrooms and to be able to go and try to work remotely from a different area, it makes it really difficult, especially for kindergarten teachers, who might have a restroom in the classroom. We have a bunch of little people that don’t know what’s happening or why. Little kids that have their outdoor playground area, but that’ll have to be relocated. That makes it tough.
Q: What’s the goal temp in a classroom?
It’s 76. We allow a 2-degree differential. Nobody really wants to go higher. But, yeah, we try to get it down to 74 and then some of our schools run from like 74 and it’ll be back on to 76 and bring it back down. So we may offset that a little bit more just so it doesn’t exceed that 76 level.
Q: What’s your ideal temp at home?
Set at 78 degrees. I completely understand the pressures of everybody else. You know, if it’s like 78, I’m comfortable.
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