Hi Next Gen'ers,

It's Groundhog's Day and unfortunately, the groundhog at the Capitol lawn saw his shadow, which means we will be talking about the AEL for 26 more days. On the bright side, it means I'm going to keep sending you loopholes in the hope that it will ease the fear and help you find a path that will work for you.

Exemption by Election Strategy

Call for an election to authorize your District to be exempt from the Aggregate Expenditure Limit, effective for 2022-23 and for six subsequent years.

Pros:

This is already worked out with Gust Rosenfelds, so the only thing you have to do is let Jim Giel know that you want to run the question. We had it detailed out with severability clauses along with the legal arguments to justify the structure of the question. Maricopa County was also on board, but that's when Marc Kuffner was still there, so I don't know if it will be a battle now. The biggest pro is that if 1/3 of the State could get this question passed, then the entire State would come back under the limit...we would all be exempted.

Cons:

I took a lot of friendly fire on this one, and ultimately Tolleson didn't call the question. The concern is that if we demonstrate that this is in line with our Constitutional rights, then the legislature may never exempt us again and say that we all need to go back to our voters for exemption. There are some communities that will never pass this question, and it may come as a shock, but the legislators who won't give us their vote happen to represent some of those same communities. This move will break our system further and increase disparity in the short term, but in the long term, it could be enough to justify the School Finance rewrite.

Legal References:

This goes straight to the Constitution, so you would be looking at Article IX Section 21. One of the key sentences is this one: "Expenditures by a school district in excess of such an expenditure limitation must be approved by a majority of the electors voting on the excess expenditures." It's not just about what it says but also what it doesn't say. This sentence is cited for the reason why overrides exist. However, it doesn't say up to 25% (M&O and Capital combined) and it doesn't say "in a manner as prescribed by law." Since the process isn't clearly defined in Statute, then you do have to draw some on existing statutes for similar processes like overrides or the AEL exemption for community colleges. As I stated earlier, I did a lot of work on this last year, and Jim Giel already has the final draft.

Recommended For:

Any District whose community would pass the question but only if they don't exempt us by March 1.

Disclosure:

Feel free to run any of these loopholes by your legal counsel or auditor, and I always welcome feedback on why the logic isn't sound.

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