Higley USD approves final FY2025 budget revision and calls maintenance-and-operation override election

The Higley Unified School District governing board approved its final revision to the district's fiscal year 2025 budget and adopted a resolution calling a special maintenance-and-operation (M&O) override election.

Board members voted 5-0 to adopt budget revision No. 3, which reconciles the district's counts to the hundredth-day average daily membership (ADM) and incorporates two one-time legislative supplements. Board members then voted 3-1 with one abstention to order a special M&O override election and set the deadline to submit pro/con arguments to the Maricopa County School Superintendent as Aug. 8, 2025, at 5 p.m.

The budget revision presentation from district staff said the session reconciled the district's budget to the hundredth-day ADM (an increase of 13.8 students) and included two one-time legislative supplements: a Group B weighting supplement tied to free-and-reduced-price-lunch counts (reported in the presentation as roughly $181,000) and a one-time capital supplemental of about $325,000. The staff presentation showed a net maintenance-and-operations change of roughly $423,000 and noted the capital transfer of one-time supplemental funding to capital projects.

District staff said this is the final year the override is fully funded: the $14 million override amount will begin to phase down next year. In the presentation, staff warned the legislature's one-time supplements will not recur in 2026 and said the district will prepare its FY2026 proposed budget on preliminary forms because statewide budget legislation had not closed at the time of the presentation.

Discussion before the override vote included requests from board members for additional breakdowns of areas that drove budget increases, including special education (noted in the presentation as rising on the budget pages) and student-support services. A board member asked for a breakdown of the drivers behind a larger debt-service payment scheduled this year; staff said it reflected scheduled principal and interest timing and that those payments will decline in later years after certain debt is paid down.

During debate on the override, some board members urged caution and said the community had rejected an override six months earlier and that trust must be rebuilt before asking again. Others argued the override is necessary to avoid program cuts and to preserve employee compensation and extracurricular programs.

The resolution calling the election directs staff to proceed with election logistics and public information. The board also discussed the possible future impact of the override phase-down on next year's budget and the timing of the proposed FY2026 budget adoption in late June.

Ending: The board approved the budget revision and advanced a measure to place an M&O override on a special election, setting local deadlines for arguments. Staff pledged to provide additional budget detail to board members on specific expenditure categories and to prepare the FY2026 preliminary budget forms for adoption in June.