Do we support our students? Absolutely.

Do we want more money for our schools, teachers and kids? Without question.

Is Proposition 123 good our teachers, schools, taxpayers or our kids? No, no, no and nuh-uh.

While the state claims Prop 123 will provide $3.5 billion over the next 10 years, this is a paltry sum to the amount of money legislators owe our kids, yet refuse to pay, even after the courts ordered them to.

Legislators mismanaged the state’s education finance system so badly in the 1980s and 1990s that voters took away part of their financial authority and passed Proposition 301 in 2000 to fund schools.

During the Great Recession of 2008, legislators broke the law by ignoring rules to make inflation adjustments to the education budget. Districts sued and won, with the courts putting the state on the hook for more than $300 million in back payments promised to our kids, due immediately.

Rather than obey the court order, legislators appealed, lost in court again, and due to the wasted time, now districts say the state owes our kids more than $1 billion.

Legislators and Gov. Doug Ducey still refuse to pay, but offered desperately cash-strapped districts a negotiated settlement, Proposition 123.

Five former state treasurers have come in opposition: Dean Martin, Carol Springer, Clark Dierks, Ernest Garfield and Morris Herring. Current Treasurer Jeff DeWit has been the most vocal opponent, even threatening a lawsuit against legislators in December over the wording on the ballot that he alleges is fraudulent, aimed specifically at misleading voters.

Prop 123 does not give schools more money. It gives already allocated money sooner, DeWit says, like going to a loan shark to get a check advance before payday.

DeWit argues that there is enough money in the state surplus to not only pay the back payments but keep schools funded at the inflation levels required by Prop 301 without touching the State Trust’s principal. In fact, he says, the state has $3 billion sitting idle in the operations account — more money than in the state’s 104-year history, and $400 million more than it had this time last year.

Legislators are holding the money hostage so they can claim to taxpayers they are fiscally wise because they have a budget surplus. But it’s a sham and voters should not reward this blatant untruth.

Apparently we can all have surpluses. It’s easy. Just stop paying your bills. Look at all that cash!

If Prop 123 passes, Ducey and legislators can pretend to be education heroes, still claim a surplus, all the while cheating our kids. Worst of all, the law will allow the state to bleed the State Trust, cutting into the principal instead of taking funds from the earned interest. In 10 years, DeWit says, we’ll be here again, with underfunded schools but with even less cash to make a difference. But by then, current legislators will either be in higher office or out of politics, so it won’t be their problem … just our schools’.

Proponents of Prop 123 aren’t knowingly participating in the deception, they’re either misguided by legislators’ falsehoods or have completely given up on getting money from a state government that has zero concern for our children.

If Prop 123 fails, the case returns to the courts and judges will again, as they have twice before, order the state to pay up. Voters, we must make it fail.

Demand state legislators give our schools the millions they promised and if they won’t, kick them out of office. Demand more for our kids. Do not yield. Vote no on Prop 123.

Christopher Fox Graham

Managing Editor

 
By the Numbers
 

The Arizona State Land Trust is now worth about $5 billion.

By keeping the withdrawal rate at the current 2.5 percent, it will be $9.6 billion in 2026. If Prop 123 passes, the rate changes to 6.9 percent for a decade, leaving it a $6.5 billion in 2026.

From 2000-2012, state appropriations per public school student decreased 10%, with the biggest drop after the Great Recession of 2008.

This next year are due $177 million under the existing Prop 301. By adopting Prop 123, schools only get $100 million.

If Prop 123 passes, the Sedona-Oak Creek School District would get an additional $253,100 next year, or $221 per student. If Prop 123 fails and the courts for the third time order the state to make back payments owed under the failure to make Prop 301 payments, Arizona districts say they’re owed $1.3 billion. SOCSD’s portion of that settlement alone would top $1.2 million, or around $1,048 per student. If Prop 123 passes, SOCSD doesn’t get a dime of back payments.

 
Is Prop 123 Even Legal?
 

Arizona House Minority Leader Eric Meyer [D-District 28] and Arizona State Treasurer DeWit have been told by their attorneys that boosting the withdrawal rate to 6.9 percent without congressional consent would be illegal as it violated the 1910 Arizona-New Mexico Enabling Act, which allowed Arizona to become a state in 1912.

The Act has been previously tested in court with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling against the state trying to change the act: “Because federal law is supreme in this field, neither this court, nor the legislature, nor the people may alter or amend the trust provisions contained in the Enabling Act without congressional approval” Murphy v. State of Arizona, 65 Ariz. 338, 181 P.2d 336 (1947).

DeWit argues that is Prop 123 passes, it will face lawsuits that will likely make their way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will which will rule Prop 123 unconstitutional, as it did with similar state laws brought before the court in 1947 and 1987.

 
Still Not Sure How to Vote?
 

The Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University has produced an easy-to-read, 12-page presentation showing all the pros and cons of Proposition 123, available at the Morrison Institute website. Click here.