TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — The Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) Governing Board passed a motion to order and call for a special Maintenance and Operations (M&O) budget override election to be held on November 4, 2025.
People living within the TUSD district will be voting on approval for an additional levy of secondary property taxes that be used to increase teachers salaries, expand fine arts, invest in students’ well-being and much more.
Teachers in the Tucson Education Association (TEA) are looking forward to change, such as Gina Santos, Warren Elementary Speech Language Pathologist.
“I think the priorities that we have identified in TEA which are salaries, supporting pre-schools and then providing more of a comprehensive education for supporting and funding specials like fine arts. People support that," Santos said.
If approved, the district can exceed their Revenue Control Limit (RCL) by up to 15 percent for seven years.
According to Ricky Hernández, TUSD Chief Financial Officer, the full 15 percent is available for five years, reduces to 10 percent in year six, and to five percent in year seven.
He says TUSD is the only school district in Tucson without a budget override.
Jennifer Eckstrom, TUSD Board President agrees these funds are needed for the community.
“Unfortunately our state government is not coming to save us or our public schools. It’s time for TUSD and our community to invest in ourselves," Eckstrom said. "It's time for TUSD to expand programs that are meaningful for our students. It is time to provide a meaningful salary to our teachers and to our school staff. And it is time to provide a meaningful salary to all of our employees, and we are going to do this with our budget override."
The district’s cost to conduct this election is about $1 million.
"So that cost goes to several things. Publishing, printing, and mailing publicity pamphlets. Every household with a registered voter would get one," Hernández explained. "Paying election workers and setting up voting centers, so we have to pay the individuals who manage those voting centers. The tabulation of ballots, so we have to pay Pima County Elections to tabulate all our votes. We also have to pay the Pima County recorder for printing and mailing of all the ballots since this will be an all-mail ballot election."
The override is estimated to generate about $45 million in additional funding for TUSD in the first year, according to Hernández.
This amount would be added to the 2026-27 fiscal year budget.
Cody Hamrick, Tucson High School Special Education Teacher says voters need to pass the override budget because all students and educators will benefit from the additional funding.
“We’ve got students that have needs and they don’t have to be special education. All of our students have needs and we have staff that are fleeing in numbers that are really disheartening because we don’t have the budgets for things," Hamrick said.
The amount requires an estimated tax rate of $1.02 per $100 of net assessed valuation for secondary property taxes on all taxable properties in TUSD.
To put that into perspective, Hernández says a $200,000 homeowner would pay about $204 per year or $17 per month and a $500,000 business owner would pay about $842 per year or $70 per month.
“It’s not greed. It’s not lining anyone’s pockets. God knows it’s not going to the teachers, right? It is an investment into the future into our students and into our communities," Hamrick said.
If approved by voters, the override funding would be available starting in the 2026-27 school year.
The deadline to submit a statement for or against the override will be Friday, August 8 at 5 p.m. and can be submitted to the Pima County School Superintendent's Office.
The last day to register to vote in order to be eligible to vote in this election is Monday, October 6.
You can find more information about the budget override election in TUSD's May 27 agenda.
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Vanessa Gongora is KGUN 9's Westside reporter.. Vanessa fell in love with storytelling by growing up in sports. She was fascinated by how sports reporters go beyond the x's & o's to tell players' stories, and how sports bring people together, inspiring Vanessa to provide the same impact as a journalist. Share your story ideas and important issues with Vanessa by emailing vanessa.gongora@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook, Instagram, and X.
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