Frequently Asked Questions

  • Local funding gives Kyrene the flexibility to meet the community’s priorities; not just minimum state requirements. It ensures that decisions about what’s best for students are made here at home, by and for the community.

    Community investment through the Maintenance & Operations Override allows Kyrene to prioritize things the state budget does not, such as:

    • Smaller class sizes for more individualized attention

    • Competitive teacher salaries to attract and retain high-quality educators

    • Robust electives like art, music, language, and physical education

    • School-based support services including speech, occupational, and physical therapy

    M&O (Maintenance & Operations) funding is essential to maintaining the quality of education in Kyrene. It supports the very people and programs that make schools thrive. Without this funding, Kyrene would face larger class sizes, reduced elective offerings, and cuts to vital student supports that families rely on.

  • Yes. Every student across all grade levels in Kyrene benefits from the override.

  • Yes. Since 1983, Kyrene voters have renewed the M&O Override, ensuring over 70,000 students have benefitted from smaller class sizes, access to robust electives, and critical student services.

  • The M&O Override directly funds 200 teaching positions in Kyrene schools, or 1 in 5 Kyrene educators.

  • If your children attended Kyrene, you’ve already experienced the value of this investment firsthand. The teachers who inspired them, the programs that challenged them, and the opportunities that helped them grow were all made possible because previous generations of Kyrene parents and community members voted to maintain this local funding.

    Now it’s our turn to pay it forward.

    By continuing that tradition, we ensure that today’s students, and tomorrow’s, have the same access to great teachers, small class sizes, and enriching programs like art, music, and language.

    Strong schools don’t happen by accident. They happen because a community chooses, again and again, to invest in them.

M&O Override FAQs

  • In Arizona, school districts are given a base budget limit by the state. Local communities and taxpayers can choose to fund an extension of that budget - up to 15%. This community investment funds priorities that the state budget alone doesn’t fully cover, like providing essential funding for teachers, smaller class sizes, and student programs.

  • “Exceeding” refers only to increasing the state-imposed limit — not overspending. Kyrene still must (and does) operate within a balanced, transparent budget every year. In fact, Kyrene has earned state and national awards for financial reporting for more than 30 years.

  • Kyrene goes above and beyond what’s required to keep our community informed. Each year, Kyrene voluntarily publishes a Comprehensive Annual Budget Report (about 150 pages long) that shows exactly how every dollar is spent throughout the district.

    Kyrene has also earned the Meritorious Budget Award from the Association of School Business Officials (ASBO) International for the past three consecutive years. Less than 150 school districts nationwide received this distinction in 2024-25.

    This national award recognizes school districts that demonstrate exceptional transparency, clarity, and accountability in their financial reporting. It’s one more way Kyrene ensures the community can trust how funds are managed and that dollars go where they matter most: classrooms and students.

  • Unfortunately, no. Arizona consistently ranks near the bottom nationally in per-student education funding, typically 48th or 49th in the country depending on the year and report.

    State funding covers only the basic operational needs of public schools. It does not fully support the level of staffing, programs, and services that Kyrene families have come to expect.

  • Out of hundreds of districts in the state of Arizona, Kyrene is among the top 10 school districts for percentage of funding allocated to classroom spending. Additionally, Kyrene continues to be one of the lowest districts for administration costs per student, consistently well below the state average.

    (Note: Arizona has the lowest administrative costs in the country, so Kyrene has some of the lowest administration costs nationwide.)

  • Over the past nine years, Kyrene has reduced its budget by $24 million — the same amount lost in state funding due to declining enrollment.

    These budget reductions have been made without Kyrene ever having to implement a reduction in force, and in ways that protect what matters most: students and classrooms.

  • Kyrene’s maintenance and operations (M&O) override is based on a percentage of the annual operating budget, not a fixed dollar amount.

    Because the operating budget is tied to student enrollment, when enrollment declines, the base budget automatically shrinks, and so does the 15% override amount.

    In other words, Kyrene isn’t asking for more money. The override renewal simply maintains the same level of local support relative to current enrollment. The amount a district can request is already adjusted to reflect a smaller student population.

    Even with fewer students, the core costs of running schools don’t disappear. Students still deserve the same opportunities afforded to them when Kyrene had higher enrollment, such as robust electives, smaller class sizes, and critical support services.

    Overrides allow Kyrene to maintain quality and stability while operating efficiently at a smaller scale.

Budget FAQs