My wife and I moved to El Mirage in 2011. We were in our 50s, our boys were grown, and it was just the two of us. Life was peaceful and quiet.
We voted in every election as far back as we could remember, but that was as “politically active” as we got. In 2016 we adopted our granddaughter five days before her third birthday.
A year ago, I started noticing “Vote Yes for Dysart” things popping up on Facebook. Most of it came from a guy I considered a trusted friend. As I began to research it, all I could find online was information posted by the Vote Yes for Dysart group.
You can’t make an informed decision based on only one side of the story, so I started digging deeper. Every answer I received brought with it 10 new questions. Before long I was spending the overwhelming majority of every day on the phone, emailing, meeting with people, and sifting through endless volumes of data, spreadsheets, budgets, reports, and articles. It quickly became my newest hobby/obsession.
The information the Vote Yes for Dysart group was putting out was intentionally vague. Since their stated objective is to persuade people to “vote yes,” I suppose that could be understandable. However, we are talking about “public education.” The vagueness seems somehow inappropriate and not conducive of “public education.”
A lot of the rhetoric was intentionally misleading. I thought, if I have to work so hard to dig up the facts, perhaps others in the community could benefit from my efforts. So, I began posting my findings on social media, to add to the public discussion and fill in some of the blanks.
That quickly degenerated into one of the ugliest nightmares of my life. The reaction (from some) was jaw dropping. I’ve never been on the receiving end of such hatred, anger, rage and vitriol in my life, and I worked as a prison guard for years in two different states. It was confirmation for my wife and me that we had done the right thing keeping our daughter away from that institution.
El Mirage Councilman-elect Mike Hutchinson and I formed the Liberty Choice PAC to mount an organized opposition and to refute the misinformation. Our objective was to present all of the facts in their entirety and allow the voters to make an informed vote, rather than being spoon fed partial and misleading information from the “Vote Yes” coalition.
On Nov. 5, 2019, the special election was held. Dysart had a $154 million bond it wanted voters to approve (even though it still had $120 million in outstanding debt from a previous bond), and they were hoping to get a “vote yes” on a new 15% budget override (even though there were still three years left on the override in place).
Dysart’s override was rejected by 57% of the voters. And the bond was also rejected. Dysart was the only district where the voters rejected the bond, and the only district where both ballot measures were soundly defeated.
Within a day of that election ,Superintendent Quinn Kellis posted a statement on social media that in part read: “We will not be dissuaded by the low voter turnout and believe that there is more support for the bond and override than the vote reflects. We will be back again next year to again seek community support for these much-needed funds.”
In truth, Dysart uncharacteristically had one of the highest voter turnouts in the county. Dr. Kellis overstepped his authority stating that “we will be back again next year.” It costs us, the taxpayers, $200,000 to $250,000 to have these measures placed on the ballot. It’s ridiculous to think an overzealous superintendent could simply waste our tax dollars endlessly putting these measures on the ballot and ignoring the will of the voters, making a mockery of our election process, and relentlessly pounding away until he gets the results he wants.
For that reason, we have a governing board to (in theory) protect us from that kind of autocratic abuse. The five-member governing board is elected by the 110,000 voters of this district to represent us. They are not appointed by the superintendent to represent him.
Unfortunately, we have a board made up of friends and cronies of the superintendent, who also ignored the results of the last free and fair election. The will of the “qualified electorate” as Title 15 of the Arizona Revised Statutes puts it, and simply rubber stamped the orders of their leader.
The population in El Mirage grew from 1,723 to 7,637 during the 40 years from 1960 to 2000. Five years later, it had shot up to 20,764, and by 2010 it was 31,797.
Surprise was smaller than El Mirage in 1960. It started catching up in the 1980s, and by 1990 the population of Surprise was 7,182 — 2,166 more than El Mirage.
By 2000, Surprise was already starting to boom with 31,038 people. Five years later that number had more than doubled to 78,108, and another five years it was at 117,517. At that time Surprise was the fastest growing city in Arizona.
It’s hard to anticipate or plan for that kind of growth, so DUSD asked the voters to approve a budget override, which allows a school district to exceed its normal budget by up to 15% by increasing property taxes in the district.
Overrides are temporary fixes meant to address unforeseen circumstances like those above. If approved, they are in place for only seven years. In the sixth year the amount the school district receives in reduced by one-third, and in the seventh year it is reduced by two-thirds. This is to make the transition back to the statutory regular budget easier.
From 2010 until today, Dysart has not experienced that kind of growth. Enrollment in Dysart public school peaked in 2015. From 2015 to 2016, the district population increased by 1.80%, while enrollment in DUSD public schools dropped by 5.19%.
From 2016 to 2017, the population increased by another 1.29% and DUSD enrollment dropped 0.79% that year. From 2017 to 2018, population grew by 2.04%, the largest increase in years. But DUSD enrollment dropped by 1.36% that year. Do you see the trend?
The annual regular budget for the DUSD 2017/2018 school year was $174 million. There was a 15% budget override in place as well. For the 2018/2019 school year, the regular budget increased by 6.28% to $185 million, with the 15% override still in place, and a 1.36% decline in student enrollment. In 2019-2020, it saw a 5.64% budget increase to $196 million with the 15% budget override still in effect. This year’s budget was approved June 24 and comes in at a whopping $208 million, a 6.4% increase over last year.
That’s in spite of the steadily declining enrollment as families find better way to provide a true “quality education” to their children, and in spite of the fact that this pandemic hit families in this area hard. Families lost jobs, lost income, had to make serious cuts. In the midst of it all they were suddenly forced to find new and inventive ways to provide their children with an education.
One group that wasn’t financially burdened by this crisis was government school employees. In fact, the rubber stamp coalition masquerading as our governing board hastily rushed through a million-dollar contract renewal a year early without waiting for the employee evaluation for their superintendent friend. In 2017, when Dr. Kellis took over, DUSD ranked in the top 43% of all the districts in Arizona. Last year, after two years on his watch, we dropped to the bottom third, with 63% of Arizona districts outperforming us.
While people and families are hurting and struggling during these trying times, adding this budget override to the ballot was insensitive and irresponsible.
And once again the Vote Yes PAC is hard at work spreading misinformation and half-truths in an attempt to catch you off guard and trick you into voting for this irresponsible “temporary” override. Their campaign slogan is “This is Not a Tax Increase.”
If it’s not a tax increase, why did they have to waste another $200,000 of our money to put it on the ballot? Why do they need voter approval if it’s not a tax increase?
Editor’s Note: Mr. Demers is the head of a PAC called Liberty Choice.
