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Higley is prepared if spending cap remains BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
COMMUNITY...........20 Gilbert toddler comes through chemo a ‘champ.’
SPORTS..................... 25 Campo Verde basketball team riding high.
Sunday, January 23, 2023
H
igley Unified School District is looking at an estimated $123 million maintenance-and-operation budget – $3 million higher than the current spending plan – for the fiscal year beginning July 1. CFO Tyler Moore last week gave the Governing Board a first review of the proposed budget, which funds salaries, utilities and day-to-day operations. The board is expected to formally adopt a budget in June.
At the Jan. 18 meeting ,Moore said the budget takes into consideration that student enrollment would remain flat, the base-level support per student would get an increase of 2% for inflation and that the Arizona State Retirement System contribution is going up by 0.12%, a $60,000 increase for the district. The budget, however, does not yet have the dollar amount for the money that will have to be transferred to the capital budget to fund projects because the $77.2-million bond failed in November, Moore said. “This was our preliminary plan if the
bond did not pass,” he said, adding that his first presentation of the capital budget Feb. 8 will have the transfer amount. The initial budget also doesn’t yet have the figures for expected increases in fixed costs, such as for property insurance, utilities and worker compensation. “The biggest area where we’re seeing a continued increase to the budget is the balance carry forward,” he said. “We have that estimated at $26 million right now. A large portion of that is again towards vacancy sav-
see HIGLEY page 4
Gilbert parents turn their grief into a campaign BY CECILIA CHAN
GSN Managing Editor
A
year and four months have passed but the death of his 15-year-old son Christian still gnaws at Bruce Petillo’s
GETOUT .....................27 Western Week galloping into the region. COMMUNITY............................. 19 BUSINESS .................................. 22 OPINION ....................................26 SPORTS ......................................29 GETOUT .....................................30 CLASSIFIEDS ............................ 37
heart. “We are devastated,” the Gilbert dad said. “You never come to terms with it. “The fact that this was a preventable accident makes it worse.” It was Labor Day weekend 2022 and Christian was at a friend’s house on a county island in Queen Creek. The friend was showing off his mom’s
see GUNS page 6
Christian Petillo’s family keeps a small memorial table in their Gilbert home with photos and keepsakes of their dead son, who accidentally shot himself at a friend’s Queen Creek area house in September 2021. (David Minton/Staff Photographer)
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