New report highlights financial woes of Arizona school districts

A new Arizona Auditor General’s report found dozens of Arizona’s public school districts across the state are on the verge of running into major financial problems. Lindsey Perry, Arizona Auditor General, joined us to discuss.

Several public school districts are facing budget cuts, teacher layoffs and closure of school buildings. The report said these are serious red flags with 47 of Arizona’s 207 districts at high risk of exceeding their budgets, and 47 districts are redirecting capital improvement money to pay basic operational expenses.

Lawmakers met with Superintendent Tom Horne, but the audit was not brought up. Critics say the issue is the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) voucher program claiming it draws students away from public schools causing them to lose funding.

What is an Auditor General?

“We audit state agencies, commune colleges, school districts. We do a slew of audits on the spectrum and financial investigation,” said Lindsey Perry.

Perry then said, “We look at ten measures across several categories; for example, we will look at declining school enrollment.”

They know school enrollment, and it garners so much money descibed by Perry. This means less revenue for the school district. Then they also look at financial position as a school district spending more than its taking in in revenue.

Then they look at unrecieced balances; if they are overspending their money, they have to take it from somewhere, said Perry. What is looked at next is receivership, and Perry said that is a topic in the news.

“When they take over the school district because of mismanagement, that’s another measure we look at. You take the measures, and you have 47 out of a few hundred that are at high risk of exceeding budgets,” said Perry.