Arizona Education Association

Background
Arizona 's enabling act set aside nearly eleven million acres as State Trust Lands and revenues generated from the Permanent Fund of these lands is dedicated to the beneficiaries of the Trust. Education makes up 96% of this revenue allocation with K-12 receiving the highest share of revenues produced by the Trust. In 2000, Arizona voters passed Proposition 301 that forced Arizona to direct new Permanent Fund revenue to school districts as additional funding rather than offset state aid allocations from the general fund as well as providing other revenue to schools.

Proposition 301 established a "Classroom Site Fund" in every Arizona public school district and two new revenue streams that provide funding for the Classroom Site Fund on a per pupil basis - (1) a .6% statewide sales tax and (2) the new revenues generated from the state trust lands. In addition, Proposition 301 also requires the legislature to provide a 2% annual inflation increase for school district maintenance and operations budgets.

These two new revenue sources have provided hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding for public schools. These funds must go directly to school district Classroom Site Funds that can only be spent on base teacher salaries, teacher performance based pay, or specific classroom based expenditures such as class size reduction, professional development, AIMs intervention programs, or drop out prevention. In addition, the required 2% inflation funding has provided a stable increase in school budgets for Education Support Professional compensation needs.


Conserving Arizona 's Future Initiative
State Trust Lands are valuable to Arizonans.  Conservation of these lands for the future generations is a common interest of a wide range of Arizonans, including conservation organizations, teachers, and education organizations.

AEA President John Wright has worked closely with leaders from this broad coalition to build a consensus on the ballot proposition language and begin collecting the signatures required to place the Conserving Arizona's Future Initiative on the ballot for the 2006 general election. 

This initiative is a simple straightforward reform that will:

• Conserve and protect 690,000 acres of some of the most important natural areas in Arizona protecting them from development for generations of Arizonans to enjoy.
• Provide state and local authorities the power to limit and control development and force developers to build quality projects.
• Protect and guarantee an essential classroom funding stream ensuring better schools for Arizona . 

• First, it would protect 690 thousand acres of state trust land by placing it in a conservation reserve; 
• Second, it would raise more money for education through more efficient sale or lease of the remaining state trust land;
• Third, it would set aside up to ten percent of revenue from state trust lands to manage state trust lands;
• Fourth, it would require the state and local communities to cooperate in planning for the development of state trust lands; and
• Fifth, it would create a Board of Trustees, appointed by the Governor, to oversee management of state trust lands

What You Can Do
183,913 valid signatures are required to qualify the Conserving Arizona's Future Initiative for the ballot. To ensure there are enough valid signatures, 280,000 signatures will be collected. 

AEA is organizing a member petition drive to collect 90,000 of the signatures required to qualify the Conserving Arizona's Future Initiative. You can sign and circulate a petition and collect qualified signatures from your family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors. Please volunteer by contacting your AEA Local Association Representative.

The petition gathering campaign needs leadership. You can become a Conserving Arizona's Future Volunteer Petition Organizer by contacting your Local Association Representative. Petition Organizers coordinate others who volunteer at their work site or in their community to gather signatures. Training is provided.