Thank you, Steve!!

Being that this was from the 2007 AG’s report, it stands to reason that the 2008 Excess Utility Formula that was eliminated in the 2009 legislative session was established as a means to address this rise in expense for our state schools. I must admit, it’s hard to read that that was in the 2007 report and not find the absence of that data in the 2009 report to be just a TAD curious. I mean…it’s almost like someone left it out so as to skew the report to make it look like those district “bureaucrats” are inflating the plant operation costs. Nah!

Eric: I admit my statement was an anecdotal statement based on round table discussions with family and friends who themselves are “Cradle Arizonans.” But these are people who, like myself, have been educated in the state; some of whom send their children to the very same buildings they attended. So while I can’t quantify it with national data I have no means of accessing, sometimes seeing is believing.

Eric T :
@Sam D
“We have “extreme weather conditions” in AZ.”
I didn’t say we didn’t. But the cold extremes in some parts of AZ are basically the same thing that happen in a large portion of US States and the hot extremes are mostly when school is not in session. I know it can still be 100 in Aug (and can be that in May, too), but we still only have to deal with the edges of summer’s heat, not the whole thing and not the worst part. Your anecdotal evidence of the problems that occur which cost M&O monies are the exact same things that every school in every district in the nation has to deal with. Saying that the extreme weather in AZ should cause us to spend more that other states does not wash.
“Furthermore, ANY “Cradle Arizonan” knows a majority of our schools have been around for ages.”
First, it’s a nice statement with no backing, just worded such that -surely- no one would ever question it. After all, ANY one would know it. Second, the age of the schools and how hard it is to heat and cool them is meaningless without the comparison to other states and their typical facilities. Perhaps you can provide some way of making a fair comparison.

Hi Eric,

Just wanted to point to what a prior 2007 Auditor General report (funny that it wasn’t in this one!) says about the extreme weather in AZ:

Plant operation and maintenance costs—Arizona school districts continued
to allocate a significantly larger percentage of their dollars to plant operation and
maintenance costs than the national average. Plant costs include expenditures for
the care and upkeep of buildings, grounds, and equipment; utilities; and security.
For fiscal year 2007, this category accounted for 11.3 percent of current
expenditures in Arizona school districts, which is 1.7 percentage points higher than
the national average.
Arizona’s high plant cost percentage may be related to its higher-than-average
percentage spent on supplies, which includes energy costs. Arizona’s energy and
other supply costs account for most of the difference between the national and
state percentages.

The replies at me from my first post both ended with a couple paragraphs about the difficulties in the school districts and the terrible state legislature, etc. I felt they seemed to sum up as if I think the school districts are bad and the legislature is the bee’s knees. Not true.

My issue was only with this Q & A. I don’t think it is fair representation of what is in the audit report.