Jakob Thorington Arizona Capitol Times//June 20, 2025//
Jakob Thorington Arizona Capitol Times//June 20, 2025//
Gov. Katie Hobbs will soon decide if an entire school board in the state should be forcibly removed from office.
The House gave final approval to House Bill 2610, which was written in response to the Arizona State Board of Education placing Isaac Elementary School District into receivership after the district had a budget deficit exceeding $20 million at the start of the year.
If signed into law, the measure would require any district placed into receivership to terminate its superintendent and require each member of the district’s governing board to vacate their seat no more than 31 days after the date of the receivership designation.
The bill passed in a final House reading 39-20 with six Democrats supporting the measure. It has been transmitted to Hobbs and awaits her decision.
“I am pleased to see bipartisan support for legislation that is going to hold accountable school boards who run their districts into the ground,” said the sponsor of the bill, Rep. Matt Gress, R-Phoenix.
The measure is retroactive to Jan. 1, so Isaac school board members could still be removed from office.
Gress and Sen. Mark Finchem, R-Prescott, led a June 6 Joint Legislative Audit Committee meeting where lawmakers listened to a 120-day report from the district’s appointed receiver, Keith Kenny.
During that meeting, Gress noted that the district had entered into an $88,000 contract for marketing services with the boyfriend of the board’s President, Patricia Jimenez.
“That would raise some concerns to me,” Gress said. “Not sure if it’s illegal, but it definitely seems unethical.”
Democratic leadership in the House and Senate has opposed HB2610. Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, D-Tucson, said the bill is overreaching and bypasses the will of voters who elect school board members.
“It is not up to the Legislature to force a governing board member, or members in this case, to resign. These are publicly elected people. The voters decide who is on a school board and who is not and those are nonpartisan elections,” Gutierrez said.
HB2610 would charge a county school superintendent with the authority to appoint governing board members to fill vacancies created from a receivership designation. In Isaac’s case, that would give Maricopa County School Superintendent Shelli Boggs, a Republican, the authority to appoint school board members for a district that has a heavily Democratic-leaning voter base.
Isaac school officials entered into an agreement with Tolleson Union High School that gave Tolleson leasehold rights over Isaac Middle School for $25 million, which it has leased back to Isaac. The contract is in place for 12 years at a 6% interest rate and was made to help Isaac quickly climb out of its financial hole.
Gress has criticized the agreement between the two school districts as a “predatory loan” that will lead to higher taxes in the future for Isaac district residents as the school district pays off the loan.
HB2610 would also prohibit school boards from entering into real estate transactions like the one between Isaac and Tolleson.
The audit committee invited Tolleson’s Governing Board President Leezah Sun, a former Democratic state representative who resigned from the House in 2024 following an ethics report that concluded she threatened a Tolleson lobbyist, to its June 6 meeting.
Sun and Tolleson Superintendent Jeremy Calles declined to attend the audit committee meeting. Gress and Finchem expressed frustration that nobody from Tolleson attended the meeting and that their written questions about the district’s land contract were directed to an attorney for the district.
Gress said the committee is considering other compulsory options if Tolleson officials decide not to attend the next meeting they’re invited to.
“We don’t play this game with attorneys,” Finchem said. “That will not be tolerated.”
Reps. Lupe Contreras, D-Avondale, and Elda Luna-Nájera, D-Tolleson, both voted for HB2610. The two representatives represent the Tolleson area. Sen. Eva Diaz, D-Tolleson, said her constituents have significant concerns over the contract between the two districts during the Senate’s vote on the bill.
Rep. Lydia Hernandez, D-Phoenix, also supported the bill in the House, although she said she didn’t completely agree with how Republicans have approached the Isaac situation.
“Mismanagement is not being dealt with at the state level,” Hernandez said. “I’m disheartened by the fact that there isn’t a political will to hold board members accountable.”
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