By Arman Sidhu |

On May 12, the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) Governing Board voted 5-0 to place a $375 million capital bond on the November 2026 ballot. Five months earlier, the same body voted 3-2 to close Pima Elementary and Echo Canyon K-8 over declining enrollment and its poor fiscal management.

SUSD has lost roughly 6,250 students since 2010-11, a 24% decline. Applied Economics, the district’s own demographer, projects another 2,400-student loss by 2035-36. Six additional campuses sit on the Phase II repurposing list and are likely the next to close. Yet, the district wants a bond 64% larger than the last one approved by voters to renovate buildings it is in the process of closing.

In 2019, Pima was rebuilt with funds from the last school bond approved in 2016 to boost the school’s enrollment. Seven years later, the Pima renovations are a startling example of hubris that comes at a colossal cost to taxpayers. 

The Arizona Auditor General’s January 2026 financial risk analysis flags SUSD on five high-risk measures:

1. State-funded enrollment is down 7.19% over four years, which directly reduces the per-pupil dollars the district receives.
2. The day-to-day operating reserve lost nearly half its value in a single year, falling from $18.86 million to $10.60 million.
3. SUSD spent more than it took in two years running, by 4.14% in FY25 and 8.52% in FY24.
4. The General Fund savings account fell 25% in FY25 and 31% in FY24, a combined $28 million drawdown.
5. SUSD pulled $4.2 million of its state capital aid, money meant for buildings, technology, and buses, and used it to cover payroll and operations instead.

In other words, SUSD is so operationally distressed that it is cannibalizing its capital fund to make payroll. A bond cannot fix that. By law, bond proceeds can only be spent on capital projects, not on salaries or classroom costs.

If this bond is approved, SUSD will still have to make cuts, most likely to staff while throwing away money to maintain spaces it cannot afford to operate.

This pattern is statewide. Chandler Unified has similarly delayed school closures and narrowly forced through a bond in 2025 after a 2024 bond request led to the district’s first school bond rejection in 30 years. Kyrene passed a $161 million bond in 2023 and is still closing six schools. Bonds do not solve enrollment declines, nor do they save jobs. Scottsdale Governing Board member Pittinsky put it plainly in the December 2025 closure vote: “SUSD is nearly 25% smaller than we were 15 years ago, yet we have closed only one program in that timeframe.”

The political machinery behind school bonds runs on the profit motives of vendors and not on the genuine needs of students, families, or the school district. The Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting documented that three architects, three construction firms, and three subcontractors captured more than half of Arizona K-12 contracts from 2013 to 2016, doing so through hundreds of thousands in political contributions to pro-bond PACs statewide.

SUSD voters have seen the worst side of school bonds co-opted by the greed and financial interests of vendors. In 2018, former Superintendent Denise Birdwell steered architectural work to Hunt and Caraway without competitive bidding, accepted $30,000 in payments during contract negotiations, and appointed an unlicensed architect with a prior felony theft conviction on the contractor selection committee. She was later indicted on 18 felony counts. Yet, the same conditions that enabled this malfeasance still remain in place with no real guardrails to protect taxpayers from the too cozy relationship between district leaders and vendors.

Before SUSD asks taxpayers for $375 million, the Governing Board and Superintendent Scott Menzel owe the district three deliverables that address the Auditor General’s findings.

1. Complete Phase II closures before any new funding request.
2. Align capital planning to the 2035-36 enrollment projection of 17,340 students.
3. Cut district-level overhead and stop diverting capital to operations. Non-instructional positions in SUSD grew while enrollment fell and instructional spending dropped to a 20-year low at 54.0%.

These actions would constitute rightsizing in earnest through fewer schools, a smaller operational footprint, and a proportionally smaller payroll.

A district carrying five high-risk flags from the Auditor General has not earned the right to ask voters for $375 million. Scottsdale voters would be well-advised to reject the request this fall. 

Arman Sidhu is a lifelong Arizonan, a professional educator, and a doctoral candidate at Arizona State University, where his research focuses on school bonds and K-12 education funding. The opinions presented are solely his own.