TUSD to unveil school consolidation plan Oct. 27; no vote before December

TUCSON — Tucson Unified School District administrators will present their school closure and consolidation proposal to the Governing Board on Oct. 27, Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo said Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. Board President Ravi Shah said the board will not vote on closures that night or at the Nov. 17 public hearing that follows. The board also approved the district's annual financial report, which shows a general fund balance that has improved but remains negative.

Trujillo said a community advisory committee has ranked a final set of consolidation scenarios. The committee weighed space at receiving schools, program access, transportation, financial impact, projected enrollment, and the availability of before- and after-school care and preschool. His team is doing a final analysis.

During the week of Oct. 19, Trujillo said, he will meet in person with the principal and faculty of each affected school before any school is discussed publicly. Parents at those schools will then get a letter with a date when he will return to answer questions.

The Oct. 27 meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. It will be moved from the Duffy Community Center to Palo Verde to handle an expected large crowd, and it will be the only item on the agenda. The study session will review the district's 2012 closures, including their savings and enrollment effects. It will also cover themes from community listening sessions and then go school by school, covering enrollment, capacity, class size, programs, transportation, bond impact and projected savings.

Unlike most meetings, public comment will come after the study session rather than before it. The meeting has a hard stop at 10 p.m. out of respect for the district's American Sign Language interpreters, Trujillo said. Materials will be posted midday Oct. 26. The full proposal will go online for public comment after the meeting, and the Nov. 17 meeting will include the legally required public hearing.

Trujillo said just over 300 parents, employees and community members attended three in-person input sessions at Saguaro, Cholla and Tucson high schools. A virtual session was scheduled for Oct. 7.

Financial report shows progress, persistent deficit

The board voted 5-0 to approve the fiscal 2025-26 Annual Financial Report and School-Level Financial Report. The reports must be submitted to the Arizona Department of Education by Oct. 15. They are unaudited.

Chief Financial Officer Ricky Hernández said the district spent $740.8 million of a $797.5 million revised budget, or 93%, up from 89% the year before.

The general fund balance improved by more than $28 million but remains negative. Hernández said its deficit shrank from about $28.3 million to about $251,000. Hernández said about $16 million of the improvement came from correcting a district error. State aid that should have gone to maintenance and operations had been deposited into capital because the district did not update its allocation formula. The rest reflected spending cuts of about $6 million and $7 million over two years.

The district's carryforward for maintenance and operations will rise from an estimated $8 million to $11 million, adding about $3.3 million to this year's budget once the state confirms the figure.

Hernández also updated the six indicators the Arizona Auditor General used in January to place TUSD among the state's higher financial-risk districts. He said the district has made progress on half of them:

Weighted student count: fell another 5%.
Budget balance reserve: declined further, as expected.
Capital reserve: fell another 26% since the auditor general's review.
General fund operating margin: the shortfall of revenue against spending was cut roughly in half, from 9.3% of revenue to 4.5%, after about $13 million in cuts over two years.
General fund balance: improved by more than $28 million but remains negative.
Capital money shifted to operations: reduced from $10 million last year to $3 million this year, with plans to reach zero by fiscal 2028.

He expects an updated assessment from the auditor general in the first quarter of 2027. He said enrollment will be "probably the most difficult" indicator to improve.

Other figures from the report:

The employee benefits trust's cash balance fell about $10 million. Hernández warned that rising claims could force premium increases.
The unemployment insurance fund dropped $7 million in cash and the workers' compensation fund about $2 million.
The district still owes those two funds $13.5 million from money moved to buy and renovate its new building at 220 W. Sixth St. It will repay them as closed school properties sell. The sale of Carson Middle School returned about $3 million.
Desegregation spending is balanced, with no overexpenditure, for the first time since Hernández became CFO.

Asked by board member Val Romero about the risk of state receivership, Hernández said the district has never overspent a statutory budget limit. He said the auditor general looks for evidence of progress driven by board and administration decisions.

Grievance pilot passes on split vote

The board voted 4-1 to approve a one-year pilot grievance process with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Communications Workers of America (CWA). The chair's count did not identify the dissenting member.

Under the pilot, third-step grievances from members of those two unions will be heard and decided by the superintendent or deputy superintendent instead of the employee relations office. The Tucson Education Association and the administrators' group are not included.

Board Clerk Natalie Luna Rose said the arrangement puts too much on the superintendent and deputy superintendent. She said she would support it for this year but wants to revisit it.

Romero shared that concern. He said negotiations had dragged on and that "delays, and unrealistic requests" had given him pause. "I really question the intent, to be honest with you," he said. He urged union members to make sure their leadership has their best interest in mind.

Another board member supported the pilot but worried that leaving out the teachers union, which the member said files most third-step grievances, would make the pilot hard to evaluate.

Separately, the board voted 5-0 to extend shift differential and out-of-class pay increases, which AFSCME members received in July, to CWA, TEA and nonbargaining employees. The changes are retroactive to July 1. Shift differential rises from 55 cents to 75 cents an hour, and to $1 next year. Out-of-class pay rises from $2.75 to $3.50 an hour. The agenda lists the cost at $25,000.

Field trip fee hike stalls

Board members signaled opposition to a proposed 66% increase in field trip bus fees for fiscal 2028, and the item did not come to a vote. Under the proposal, a local trip such as one to Reid Park Zoo would rise from $150 to $250.

Transportation Director Martha Zamora said fees have not changed in about 10 years. Over that time, driver pay has risen from about $13 an hour in 2019 to $22.18. The department ran 5,300 field trips last year.

Hernández said field trips are not reimbursed by the state and cost the district about $1 million a year, much of it covered from contingency. "We're spending a lot of money subsidizing transportation for things we don't get paid for," he said. He suggested a smaller increase of 30% to 40%. He also noted that school tax credit balances have held at about $7 million for three years while some students are told no to trips.

Board member Jennifer Eckstrom said she was not comfortable voting without data on which schools could not afford the higher fees. Another member cited a recent transportation audit identifying larger savings elsewhere. Shah said the board had not heard what the district would gain and said, "I don't think I'm hearing the appetite from this board." Trujillo said staff would bring the item back during budget season.

Food service fund could run dry by 2028

Food Services Director Lindsay Aguilar projected that the department's fund balance will be depleted in fiscal 2028 at current cost trends. The department is self-funded through federal meal reimbursements of $3.05 per breakfast and $4.87 per lunch.

All 87 schools currently serve free meals under the federal Community Eligibility Provision, approved through 2027-28. But Aguilar said the share of students who automatically qualify has fallen from 63% to 43% amid SNAP eligibility changes. If the district had to reapply now, about 47 schools would lose eligibility.

Breakfast participation is about 21%. Temporary staffing costs are down 62%.

Override spending and tax bills

In the annual override report, Hernández said the district has allocated $41.4 million from the 15% budget override voters approved in November 2025, the district's first override in 40 years. Spending includes:

$11.4 million in raises affecting about 7,300 positions
$10.4 million for about 96 reading and math interventionists
$4.3 million for 58 physical education teachers
$1.5 million for 22 social workers, all now hired
A $2,000 supplement for more than 2,800 teachers

The new tax is 98 cents per $100 of assessed value. Hernández said he made 94 calls to residents about their tax bills. In one example, a home valued at about $251,000 saw its secondary property tax rise from $532 to $788.

Also discussed:

The board voted 5-0 to approve a memorandum of agreement for RISE, a pilot at Cholla High School for ninth- and 10th-graders with attendance problems or failing math and English grades. The agenda lists the cost at $60,960. About 59 students will start after fall break. Staff said students who failed both ninth-grade English and algebra graduated at a 30% rate in four years.
The board approved the consent agenda 5-0. It included an estimated $150,000-a-year chemical waste disposal contract with Triumvirate Environmental through a federal GSA contract, and revisions to the 2027-28 calendar.
The board voted 5-0 to revise the Budget Advisory Committee charter. Members may now be recommended for removal after three absences in 12 months, and meetings move to the first Wednesday of each month. The committee's first meeting this year was canceled for lack of a quorum.
State Sen. Sally Ann Gonzales, who represents Legislative District 20, asked the board to hold meetings on the west side. She raised concerns about Indigenous students' academic performance and bus service. Trujillo said the district meets quarterly with the Pascua Yaqui Tribe's council and backed rotating meetings to west-side high schools.
A teacher's letter said interviews for a deaf and hard-of-hearing class were canceled when requested interpreters did not appear. A board member said it was the second such complaint in 30 days and noted two open ASL interpreter positions.
High schools will have early release Nov. 6 for a University of Arizona football partnership that provides 1,500 game tickets and campus visits for seniors.

This report was drafted by Claude Opus 5.5 from a live transcript produced by Deepgram Nova-2, then reviewed and edited by Nicholas De Leon with Claude Opus 5.5, and published at 9:51 PM MST on October 6, 2026. Read more about how this is made.