Prop 123 is dead
Long live Prop 123 ... More book burnings ... And Google Maps is the only map kids know.
In July, Arizona schools will lose a guaranteed revenue stream of roughly $300 million annually.
In its place, schools are getting promises from politicians that they’ll “backfill” the lost funding and continue working on a plan to replace the funding source: Proposition 123.
But at this point, even the biggest champions of extending Prop 123 say they have no choice but to let it expire on July 1.
While the legislation that lawmakers advanced yesterday to continue Prop 123 still claims that the issue will be sent to a ballot sometime in 2025, its sponsor, Republican Rep. Matt Gress, told us that’s not actually his aim: He wants to send it to the ballot in November 2026 and have the state backfill the funds for 18 months in the meantime.
He’s not alone. The idea of postponing the renewal of Prop 123 has been gaining steam as negotiations continue to drag on. It’s part logistical and part strategic: It’s almost too late to call a May election to renew Prop 123 before it expires, and there’s no campaign infrastructure to get it across the finish line with voters, even if lawmakers had a solid plan ready to go.1
Prop 123, for the uninitiated, is an amendment to the state Constitution that lets Arizona draw more money from the State Land Trust to boost school funding than otherwise allowed. It was former Gov. Doug Ducey’s way to settle a monumental lawsuit from schools arguing that lawmakers had illegally cut their funds during the Great Recession.
Voters narrowly approved Prop 123 during a special election in 2016 amid fears that it would draw so much from the trust that it would rob future generations. But the land trust has consistently achieved returns above the draw amount and has continued to grow over the last decade.
Lawmakers have had nearly 10 years to plan for the day Prop 123 expires.
The need to extend it is so universally accepted that 15 months ago, even members of the uber-conservative Freedom Caucus stood shoulder-to-shoulder promising to send a plan to the ballot in November 2024.
But that never happened.
Yesterday, lawmakers finally took the first baby steps toward sending it to the ballot in November 2026 instead.
But the plan is still far from finalized.
The House Education Committee approved HCR2047 and HCR2020, which would extend Prop 123 by continuing the additional draw from the state land trust to benefit schools, assuming voters approve it on the ballot.
Democrats could have killed the proposal by voting against it, but they largely voted “present” to keep the bills moving. The Arizona Education Association registered against one bill and as “neutral” on the other.
The Senate Education Committee is scheduled to hear mirror legislation today.
The Republican plan would keep the draw at the current 6.9% annually — meaning it would continue to drive about $300 million per year to schools. But it includes a clause allowing lawmakers to drop that draw rate down if the land trust investments aren’t performing well.
That’s a lower draw than the plan Gov. Katie Hobbs proposed last year. Gubernatorial spokesman Christian Slater wouldn’t say what Hobbs wants to do this year, or whether her plan has changed from last year, or if she thinks a Prop 123 extension should go to a special election ballot in May or wait until November 2026. Nor would he answer any other number of basic questions about how the governor hopes to solve this problem, saying only that negotiations are ongoing.
But the bigger point of contention between the Republicans and Democrats has always been who would benefit from the Prop 123 money.
Republicans are adamant that it should only go to actual teachers, arguing that far too often, new funds go toward non-classroom spending and administrative bloat.
Democrats want a more flexible option that would allow the funds to benefit additional support staff, like teachers’ assistants, saying if the goal is to keep teachers in schools and mitigate Arizona’s teacher shortage, teacher pay is only part of the issue.
The plan that advanced yesterday would put the $300 million into a program that requires schools to spend the money on teacher salaries, and:
Only pays out to full-time teachers who spend the majority of their time in classrooms
Does not pay “underperforming” teachers
Requires schools to give all eligible teachers equal salary increases
Gress said his plan would result in a $4,200 raise for teachers and would bring Arizona above the national average for teacher pay.
But he’s still open to negotiation about the details.
While the core of the plan is outlined in a constitutional amendment that will need voter approval, the details can be ironed out in state law.
With that in mind, Republicans are actually pushing two identical but separate pieces of legislation to work out the details: a bill that would require the governor’s signature, and a ballot referral that would bypass her potential veto and go directly to voters.
“I just want to convey to the (Hobbs) administration that we’re keeping the lines of communication open, we’ll continue talking about it,” Gress said. “But we needed to have two options here in case we can’t reach some kind of agreement.”
(Super)majority rule: Republican lawmakers want to require supermajority approval — meaning a 60% vote — for school bonds and override elections, the Capitol Times’ Jamar Younger reports. Republican Sen. Shawnna Bolick’s SCR1028 is up for a vote in today’s Senate Education Committee meeting. But it’s a constitutional amendment, so it would require voter approval on the 2026 ballot to go into effect.
Use them or lose them: Scottsdale Unified School District yanked 16 books off of its library shelves after conservative groups complained, leaning on a state law that bans “sexually explicit material,” the Republic’s Alexandra Hardle reports. SUSD says it preliminarily pulled the books after receiving the complaint in August and then did a review and found students weren’t checking them out anyway. Two more books are now only available with parental permission.
Drops in the bucket: The financially strapped Isaac School District is cutting its before and after school programs as it attempts to plug a $30 million hole in its budget, AZfamily reports. It’s also selling some land to the City of Phoenix. The land, which the city plans to use to build affordable housing, may bring in $2 million.
Owning the libs: The Arizona Daily Star columnist Tim Steller traces conservative antagonism toward universities back to the post-World War I era, putting into context the Trump administration’s “multipronged attack” against the generally liberal institutions.
“If it hurts Tucson and the communities around Arizona that this land-grant university serves, that’s too bad. If we lose expert scientists, that’s also too bad. If important science is not done, oh well. It’s the price to be paid for seizing universities back from the leftists,” Steller writes.
Voucher scam alert: Two people were sentenced to supervised probation and ordered to repay $200,000 for a school voucher scam they ran with their mother and two other Arizona Department of Education employees, KTAR’s Danny Shapiro reports.
Republican Rep. Teresa Martinez sponsored legislation to ensure that Arizona students learn that the “Gulf of Mexico” doesn’t exist and that it’s called the “Gulf of America” now.
“This bill doesn’t say how to teach, what to teach. It just says, when discussing the Gulf of America, we should call it the Gulf of America instead of the Gulf of Mexico and follow President Trump’s lead,” she said, arguing it would promote patriotism.
The bill passed the House Education Committee yesterday on a party-line vote. One Democrat voted “absolutely no” and one Republican voted “sí.”
Meanwhile, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced she’s thinking about suing Google if it continues to label the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America for users in the United States.
We’d like take this opportunity to brag that we saw this coming, and we previously explained the arguments in favor of putting off a vote until 2026. And for a whole podcast of Ducey alumni reliving the battle over Prop 123 and debating the merits of a 2026 ballot referral, check out the latest edition of “Scarp and Friends.”