Joint city and school district meeting prompts push for funding and committee before FY27 budget talks

At a joint work session on March 25, Sedona City Council directed staff to look into ways to financially support the Sedona-Oak Creek School District, and to start having a committee of council members and representatives from local schools.

At the joint meeting between the City Council and SOCSD Governing Board, council also heard the initial results of the city’s Community Development Department’s Balanced Housing Strategy which will be covered in a future issue of the NEWS.

Among the early findings, Community Development Director Tony Allender said a major goal is to increase SOCSD’s enrollment by 50%, recommending a 10-year construction target of 775 new housing units aimed at bringing roughly 450 school-age children and 750 working adults to Sedona. Allender noted that 221 units are already in planning or under construction, and said the city could further reduce the need through outreach efforts aimed at returning up to 88 existing homes to the market.

“I look at the numbers we spend on Shared-Use Paths: We had $3 million on Andante, $2.8 million on Brewer, $26 million garage, a $20 million Cultural Park,” Councilman Derek Pfaff said. “I don’t think any of these things are things people look at, when they think about moving to Sedona, they look at, what are the schools like? If we really want to bring young people to the city, we need to improve the schools.”

Pfaff said there was a question if the city providing financial support to the school violated the Gift Clause in Article 9, Section 7, of the Arizona State Constitution. “From what I understand, we don’t have Gift Clause concerns when it comes to supporting another governmental entity,” he said. “It depends on exactly what is proposed,” City Attorney Kurt Christianson said. “But yes, there’s more leeway there than other entities.”

Some of the potential areas of city support: Afterschool and before-school programs, athletics, theater and music. However, SOCSD Superintendent Tom Swaninger, Ph.D, and Governing Board President Randy Hawley both said they do not currently have a priority list of their desires for city support.

Vice Mayor Brian Fultz, who asked for SOCSD to have the joint meeting, was asked to organize the committee, with Councilwoman Charlotte Hosseini also volunteering from the council side. SOCSD Governing Board Members Lauren Robinson and Sam Blom and will probably swap out its members of the committee with other board members.

“We start serious budget discussions in a few weeks,” Mayor Holli Ploog said. “So it would be really good if you could have your first meeting … while we still have opportunities for FY 27.”

SOCSD’s enrollment has steadily declined by 50% from 1,365 students in 2001 to 695 students last year. “But If you look at our English language enrollment over the years from 2020 to 2026, we have had an 109.3% increase of our English language learners, those that qualify for additional support in English language learning,” Swaninger said.

SOCSD has 103 people on its staff. Of those, 31% live within Sedona, while 69% live outside. Among teachers specifically, the share living in Sedona is slightly higher, at 38% within Sedona and 62% outside. Swaninger said SOCSD has been successful at recruiting teachers fresh out of college. “We’ve also done OK with those that are close to the end of their career,” Swaninger said. “They are empty-nesters … they built a bit of savings, but where it has been impossible is to hire and retain teachers that are raising families.”

The largest share of staff live in Sedona at 32 employees, followed by Cottonwood with 21, Village of Oak Creek with 17, Cornville with nine and Camp Verde with seven. The remaining 17 employees are spread across other communities such as Prescott Valley, Clarkdale or Flagstaff.

Potentially more SOCSD staffers could end up living in VOC following the SOCSD Governing Board’s recent decision to accept a $10 million bid for former Big Park Community School property from district philanthropists Basil and Mimi Maher. “We wanted to get the money to the school for their infrastructure,” he said.

Basil Maher said his intention is for all the current tenants to remain on site, including Community Library Sedona’s VOC branch. Additionally he is exploring resurrecting his previous plan to convert some of the classrooms into apartments that could be leased to SOCSD staff. However, Swaninger said he has not had conversations with the Mahers about that possibility.