Arizona Senate Refers Teacher Pay School Spending Measure to November Ballot

Sen. Jake Hoffman's classroom-spending measure cleared the Republican-controlled Arizona Senate on a party-line vote, sending SCR 1032 to the House and putting Arizona voters, including those in Yuma County, on track to decide in November whether larger school districts must devote 60 cents of every dollar to "direct instructional expenses," a category that includes teacher salaries.

The Queen Creek Republican sponsored the ballot referral in direct response to a finding by the state Auditor General's Office that, on average, just 52.1 cents of every dollar currently flows to instruction, the lowest level since the Auditor General began tracking the figure two decades ago. The 60% floor would apply to the bigger school districts in the state's two most populous counties.

Because SCR 1032 is a ballot referral, it bypasses the governor's desk entirely. House approval would send the question directly to voters this November.

Hoffman framed the measure as handing accountability back to parents. "This lets voters tell those districts, 'No, no, no, we want our children to have a funded classroom. We want our children to get a well-paid teacher who is highly qualified to teach those kids,'" he said. He argued districts have systematically drifted from that priority: "They want teachers who are supported so that they can focus on delivering a world-class education. And what we've seen is districts have instead prioritized grant writers, they've prioritized district office staff, they have prioritized everything else, all of the bloat in the administrative side of education."

Senate Minority Leader Priya Sundareshan pushed back, arguing there are not enough state dollars allocated to K-12 education to pay more to teachers and fund everything else schools are required to do.

The legislature previously tackled teacher compensation in 2018, approving a measure to raise salaries 20% over a four-year period through 2021. Arizona schools are simultaneously navigating a separate debate over renewing Proposition 123 funding.

A second measure also moved this session. House Concurrent Resolution 2040 cleared the Arizona Senate Government Committee with a different focus: prohibiting public school districts from using taxpayer resources to support union organizing. If HCR 2040 passes the full Senate, it too would go directly to voters in November as a ballot referral, requiring no gubernatorial signature.

With the House still to act on SCR 1032, the measure's precise scope, including which specific districts and counties fall under the 60% mandate, will be confirmed in the weeks ahead.