Today's election day for the city of San Luis and some parts of Yuma. Yumans who live within in the Crane Elementary School District boundaries have probably already seen voter information about an override.
Crane's override election is entirely by mail, so today marks the last day voters can drop off their ballots at the following dropbox locations:
- Yuma County Recorder’s Office - 102 S. Main Street, Yuma
- Yuma County Main Library - 2951 S. 21st Drive, Yuma
- Somerton Library - 240 W. Canal Street, Somerton
- San Luis Library - 1075 N. 6th Avenue, San Luis
But What's An Override Election?
The Crane District is asking voters to continue a District Additional Assistance (DAA) override that is set to expire this fiscal year. An override acts as a tax increase to provide additional funding. In Crane’s case, they’re seeking the override to address school safety and security, technology and transportation needs—these are all capital needs that can't be purchased by the district's regular capital budget and aren't included in its current bond program.
Voters approved an override back in 2018, so this override would maintain the increase that’s been in place since for another seven years. In doing so, voters provide Crane with $1.5 million each year, an amount that the district's found necessary for addressing security and technology needs.
During Crane’s October governing board meeting, CFO Dale Ponder explained why that’s been more true in recent years.
"... when this was developed, it was in 2018, prior to COVID, prior to large increases in inflation," he said. "We did have an inflator built into our project schedule at about 3% per year. However, we did not anticipate the global pandemic or the increase in inflationary costs for goods and services following that time, so this is a little out of wack, a little skewed."
Ponder further noted the details of costs in each area, comparing how Crane said it would spend override funds with how it actually spent them.
"You'll see that safety and security—we had actual costs that were involved in $6,000," he continued. "We did address all of the needs of the district that we said that we were going to use the funds for, which were security cameras, access controls, including the lockdown system, a lot of those different technologies within safety and security, we did meet that need."
"You can see that technology is way out of balance," Ponder remarked. "The cost of devices grew significantly over that period of time, and you can see that we had to absorb that and did so through district resources."
With the current override's funds, Crane has:
- Implemented cameras, access controls, a one-button lockdown system
- Purchased devices and software for students and staff
- Acquired new school buses and replacement vehicles for support departments
Although some costs were much lower than expected, Crane still ended up using all of its override funding for the last fiscal year.
"Overall, we would be spending 100% of the funds available with $1.5 million that's coming in plus the budget balance of about $89,000 from FY25," Ponder pointed out.
Cost to Taxpayers
But what might the continued tax increase look like for individuals? Well, that depends on their property.
When the governing board voted to pursue the special election in May, Randy Stein from Stifel Public Finance presented on the potential tax impact.
She explained that these numbers depend on assessed values of houses for owners in the district's boundaries. Using property value figures for fiscal year 2026, that would be roughly $0.48 for every $100.
These aren't Zillow numbers, however, and that makes a huge difference.
Stein checked out Zillow over several weeks prior to her presentation to get an idea of what figures individuals are likely to consider their property value.
"... in each of these cases, you could see that the Zillow value or what you would contemplate that you could sell it for is substantially higher than the value that the property is taxed at," she said. "...Hopefully that message penetrates among various communities and that when you're told the average value house in the area is $182,000, you’re not sitting there thinking to yourself, 'Yes, but my house is worth over $300,000 and so my tax bill is going to be 50, 75% more than that,' when in fact your tax value for tax purposes is in fact right at the average."
The average assessed value of a property in the Crane district is $182,070. At that figure, a property owner would be taxed $87.19 a year, or $7.27 a month.
According to Crane, the increase is slight from 2018. At that same figure, a property owner in 2018 would've been paying $87.02 annually.
Minimizing Tax Burdens
Crane does remain mindful of the fact that they’re asking taxpayers for more, however. In addition to providing regular reports about their spending, they’ve been part of a lawsuit since 2017 that aims to rectify the state’s capital funding system for public schools.
"Really what we found, Sisko, is over time, we have also become very reliant on our local property taxpayers to support the district," he told KAWC. "We're incredibly appreciative of their investments, but that's not something that the local taxpayers should have to carry the burden for, which is why the district was involved in being a part of this iteration [of the lawsuit]."
More about this lawsuit is forthcoming and available here. But to summarize it briefly: the Arizona Constitution mandates the legislature to provide for a general and uniform public school system. Districts like Crane have argued that the system is not uniform due to disparities created by the current capital funding system model. The judge has ruled in their favor, and Ponder hopes this will pave the way to a fairer system.
Until then, Crane continues to find community support essential. As noted in their fact sheet for voters, without DAA override funding, Crane will "face challenges in improving school safety and security, refreshing student devices, and replacing aging buses. We would not recommend this renewal unless it were vital to sustaining the high-quality education our community expects."
Reporting for this article is supported by a grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation.
