The Maricopa Community College District is racing to buy property for three future college sites in the West Valley as land prices continue to boom.


If the district can't buy by the end of the year, officials say they will have to re-strategize. That means buying smaller lots or campuses farther away from the people they aim to serve.

In the next five years, student enrollment is expected to climb 43 percent, to 400,000 students, much of that growth in the West Valley.

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Courses offered in Arizona's community college system may be taken to pursue a career, such as becoming a psychiatrist, or simply for lifelong learning.


"Courses offered for credit shall satisfy at least one of the following purposes and requirements: Provide continuing education and lifelong learning," Arizona Revised Statutes 15-1410 A. (f) states.

But some lifelong learning classes such as Single Again, Coping with Stress and Approaching Math Positively have been categorized by the Arizona Tax Research

Association as "recreational."

The Hayden-Winkelman School Board has once again sought relief from high property tax rates from the Arizona State Legislature and while help may come from that corner, it might not take the form the district originally sought.

Santa Cruz Valley Union High School Superintendent Gene Bichekas told the Central Arizona Valley Institute of Technology Governing Board that the high school plans to sue CAVIT for this year's funding.


"We are prepared to go forward with a lawsuit and let the judge decide the outcome," Bichekas said during Wednesday's regular CAVIT meeting.

Santa Cruz believes it should receive CAVIT funding this year for enrollment in its career and technology programs last year.

Voters take note: A publicity pamphlet sent out by the Paradise Valley Unified School District might be misleading.


For Tuesday’s election, district officials compiled information and mailed pamphlets to residents in the district at a cost of roughly $46,000.

The "pro" and "con" statements are written by interested parties, but are not factchecked by anyone at the Maricopa County Elections Office, which printed the pamphlets, said Yvonne Reed, the office’s spokeswoman.

A new 13-member state commission is taking on the task of studying whether dozens of elementary and high school districts across Arizona should be combined into unified districts.


It's an issue that's proved too hot to handle before, but supporters hope changes from previous merger proposals may make any eventual unification recommendations more palatable to voters and local officials.

A recent article in the Arizona Capitol Times included a response from a community college spokesperson to a letter to legislators from the Arizona Tax Research Association (ATRA).


Kathy Boyle, executive director of the Arizona Community College Association (ACCA), said most of the classes listed in the ATRA letter are paid for by tuition and class fees, not state funding. (Lawmaker targets state funding of community college ‘fun’ courses, Nov. 11)

SIGNAL PEAK - The Central Arizona College Governing Board on Thursday approved a $38.2 million budget for 2006-07 that includes a slight reduction in the property tax rate.


The rate will drop from $2.10 per $100 net assessed value to $2.06.

Dennis Jenkins, CAC's vice president for finance and community development, said the rate would have dropped to $2.04, but the college has to pay its share of the Kinder-Morgan judgment after the Arizona Tax Court found that the pipeline company overpaid its property taxes for several years and must be paid back.

At least three questions remain unanswered eight years after Arizona changed the way it funds school construction.


What's good enough?

How much inequity is acceptable?

How do you pay the increasing costs?

It's time to talk about the answers.

But first, a nod to history.

From the political notebook:


Someone forgot to give Randy Pullen the memo, but in the modern political era, political parties are not truly independent political forces. They exist primarily as vehicles for the conduct of certain political tasks for the party's officeholders and candidates.

In today's political world, a political party chairman has only two real functions: raise money and say patently ridiculous things about the other side.