A proposition on November's ballot would impose new instructional spending requirements on certain Arizona public school districts. But outside the state's three most populous counties, only three districts would be affected — and two are in Yuma County.
Proposition 320 would require affected districts to eventually spend at least 60% of their operational budgets on direct instructional expenses. The measure would apply to all public school districts in Maricopa, Pima and Pinal counties, as well as districts elsewhere with at least 7,500 students.
Only three districts meet that last criterion: Flagstaff Unified School District, Yuma Elementary School District One and the Yuma Union High School District.
State Rep. Michael Carbone — whose legislative district includes Yuma — supports the measure.
"You're just saying sixty cents on the dollar is going to go back into the classroom, and it shouldn't be tied to administration,” he said. “Administration is way over bloated."
But the proposed spending requirement would exclude more than just administrative costs — one reason retired Yuma School District One superintendent Jamie Sheldahl argues the measure could do more harm than good.
What Counts as Direct Instruction?
“It sounds great on the surface, right? Gosh, for every dollar you get, you should be able to spend sixty cents on your core mission,” Sheldahl said. “Sure. Yeah, that sounds great. But let's define the core mission. Let's define which positions further that mission. Let's define which positions are critical to student student learning.”
School counselors, nurses, transportation and librarians, for example, wouldn’t count toward the 60% threshold under the accounting categories district officials expect would be used.
There are other notable distinctions.
For example, YUHSD officials explained in an informational presentation on Prop. 320 that while athletic coaching stipends would count as instructional spending, the cost of transporting athletes to games would not.
Likewise, classroom teachers would count toward the requirement, but instructional coaches who provide teachers with training and curriculum support would not.
Special education expenses would also be treated differently. According to YUHSD officials, tuition for certain specialized education programs could count as direct instruction, while services such as speech, occupational and physical therapy would fall under student support — and therefore wouldn't count toward the 60% threshold.
Making the Numbers Work
And meeting the proposed spending requirement could prove challenging for the two Yuma districts.
Neither currently meets the 60% threshold. According to the Arizona Auditor General's fiscal year 2025 figures, District One spent about 49% of its operational budget on direct instruction while YUHSD spent about 47%.
Prop. 320 would require districts below the threshold to increase their instructional spending share by at least half a percentage point annually. But it would not provide additional funding to help them do so.
“There's no revenue attached to it,” Sheldahl said. “There's only a punitive piece attached to it."
He likened school district budgets to a pie, with different portions devoted to instruction, transportation, maintenance and other essential services.
"There's no way to increase one section of the pie without decreasing the other sections," he said.
District One's preliminary spending figures for fiscal year 2026 help illustrate that challenge. Of its approximately $138.2 million in operational expenses, $60.9 million was classified as direct instruction. Another $23.9 million was attributed to transportation, $13.5 million to buildings, maintenance and utilities, and $11 million to student support services.
But simply increasing spending on instruction wouldn't necessarily mean a district's instructional spending percentage would rise either.
During a September presentation to the governing board, District One Director of Financial Services Jamie Walden explained that rising costs in other areas, such as transportation and maintenance, could offset increases in instructional spending.
"Even when instruction dollars increase, the percentage can stay flat or decline all depending on the total operation cost," she said.
YUHSD officials highlighted another potential complication: Even money received through grants could affect a district's instructional spending percentage.
During the district's own presentation on Prop. 320, Chief Financial Officer Neil Brown explained that YUHSD employs grant-funded social workers. But because those positions fall under student support rather than direct instruction, the expenditures wouldn't count toward the 60% requirement.
"So even though we have our social workers out of a grant, they still will not fall in that 60% category," Brown said.
That means spending more on certain student support services, even using grant money, could actually lower the percentage of a district's budget devoted to direct instruction.
For districts already below the proposed threshold, Sheldahl said meeting the requirement could mean cutting back on some of those services.
“Well, for the first few years, they could probably make the adequate yearly progress by increasing it a little bit by giving a haircut on the other services that are provided,” Sheldahl said.
But he noted that Yuma districts already do a considerable amount of cost-saving.
District One, for example, has previously hired health aides rather than have nurses at every school and it shares transportation expenses with YUHSD already.
“There's a lot of things that in Yuma we do through consortium and collaboration that already saved money for the community, for the school district,” he said. “So it'd be a challenge. We'd have to cut back on a lot of those services incrementally. And then eventually with the structure of the way schools are funded, it would become inevitable that they wouldn't be able to meet that progress anymore.”
So What Happens If Districts Fall Short?
Under Prop. 320, a district would have to gradually increase the proportion of spending devoted to instruction or risk losing a portion of its Classroom Site Fund (CSF) allocations.
The CSF receives funding from a state education sales tax and state land trust revenues. Districts use the money for teacher pay, class-size reduction and other authorized educational expenses.
Although the state superintendent could grant limited one-year waivers from the penalties, districts found to be out of compliance would otherwise face escalating reductions in their CSF distributions: 25% in the first year, 50% in the second, 75% in the third and 100% in the fourth.
For District One, that initial 25% reduction could amount to approximately $2 million, according to preliminary estimates presented to its governing board in September. But the earliest penalties would take effect in fiscal year 2029-30, so the actual amount could change.
And much of the money at stake goes toward teacher compensation.
Sheldahl said that funding is especially important to districts like District One, which operates on base formula funding from the state along with federal grants. Without a voter-approved budget override to supplement its operating funds, District One relies more heavily on the CSF, Sheldahl said.
“It's an extremely important part of the District One budget, the high school district budget, Crane's budget,” he said. “It's an extremely important part of, really, all the school districts here in Yuma County. Some of it goes to some professional development, but almost all of it goes to teacher pay.”
Financial reporting figures from the Arizona Auditor General provide a clearer picture of the dollars at stake:
- For YUHSD, the average teacher salary in fiscal year 2025 was $75,310, with $23,094 — nearly a third — coming from the CSF.
- For District One, the average teacher salary in fiscal year 2025 was $60,561. The CSF provided $13,454 of that amount, or more than a fifth.
Losing those allocations could put a substantial portion of teacher compensation at risk, although the actual impact would depend on how districts responded to the funding reductions.
Should they respond with significant reductions in teacher compensation, however, Sheldahl warned that the districts may lose teachers. This would come at a time when Arizona is already facing significant difficulties recruiting and retaining educators.
Additionally, districts may wind up having to cut some of the supports they offer new teachers, including those who enter the profession without traditional teacher preparation under Arizona's relaxed certification requirements.
One example Sheldahl offered is instructional coaches, who help prepare and support new teachers.
At District One, he explained, those coaches observe classrooms and "help them with curriculum development, help them to unpack the curriculum that's provided through the school district, help them with lesson design."
But those positions don't count as direct instructional spending under the accounting categories district officials expect would be used.
"Well, that's an area that probably would be early on the chopping block," he said.
Different Rules for Yuma County Districts
The measure could also create a distinction between school districts within Yuma County itself.
While District One and YUHSD would be subject to the new spending requirements, smaller districts like Crane Elementary School District would be exempt. Charter schools would also be excluded.
That means neighboring districts could face different financial restrictions, even as they compete to recruit and retain educators in the same region.
Sheldahl also argued that the measure would further restrict local school boards' discretion over how their districts spend money.
"This takes more local control away from local communities," he said. “The state government in Arizona has just systematically, over the last 30, 40 years, just increasingly dictated exactly how schools are going to do their business and use their resources and serve their students.
“And it’s become, basically, a one-size-fits-all public system from an operational standpoint.”
The effects could extend beyond district finances, too. If affected districts reduce spending on other services to meet the requirement, students in neighboring districts could end up with different levels of support.
“In my 38 years in education, 26 of it was in admin … I can't think of a single time that somebody told me that what we really need to do is cut down on a lot of these services that we provide,” Sheldahl said. “It's almost always a suggestion of what other services would benefit the community and the kids.”
One alternative to cutting services would be generating additional revenue. But Sheldahl said Yuma's economic circumstances could make it particularly challenging for districts to raise more money through voter-approved budget overrides.
"Larger, wealthier communities can pass an override with very minimal taxation to the individual or the individual homeowner,” he said. “Yuma County is not in that situation … school districts and communities like ours, where the taxpayers have to tax themselves at a higher rate to generate the same amount of revenue, are really, really behind the eight ball on that one.”
Ultimately, Sheldahl argued that the proposition’s requirements are arbitrary.
"Where do they come up with 60%? Why not 55? Why not 65? Why 60? What's the research behind that? Why did they decide to do that?” he asked. “Now we've had an Auditor General's report for 20 years about dollars in the classroom. Interestingly, when schools were better funded, the instructional percentages were higher.”
For Sheldahl, the concern comes down to what school districts might have to sacrifice to meet that requirement.
"This is robbing Peter to pay Paul," he said. "This is reducing positions and services that serve our students just in order to meet an arbitrary financial bar."
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Reporting for this article is supported by a grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation.
