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Our call — vote YES
The measure
Measure 436 — the ballot designation in the district's informational pamphlet — asks voters in the Saddle Mountain Unified School District (Maricopa County) on November 3, 2026 to authorize $66,500,000 in bonds, per the district's official call of election. The stated projects: a new middle school in Tartesso, upgrades and remodeling at Ruth Fisher, safety and security upgrades at all five campuses, and bus replacement. The bonds are repaid from secondary property taxes on taxable property in the district.
What YES does
A YES vote authorizes the district to sell up to $66.5 million in bonds for those named projects and to levy the secondary property taxes to repay them with interest.
What NO does
A NO vote denies the authorization. The new middle school, the Ruth Fisher work, the campus safety upgrades, and the bus replacements must be deferred, scaled back, or paid from other funds, and no tax is levied for these bonds.
The math
The tax effect is printed as a rate: an estimated average annual tax rate of $0.54 per $100 of net assessed valuation. The purposes are named project by project — construction, remodel, safety and security at every campus, and buses are durable capital. The sources retrieved do not print a per-homeowner dollar figure or a total-interest figure, and we do not estimate either; the amount, purposes, and average rate are disclosed.
OUR CALL
Our call: YES.
New school construction, safety upgrades at all five campuses, and bus replacement, at a stated average rate of $0.54 per $100 of assessed value. That is bond financing used for exactly what it is for, with the price printed. Approve it.
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Sources
- Maricopa County School Superintendent — Bond and Override Elections (2026), and the district informational pamphlet linked from that page (accessed October 25, 2026) — https://schoolsup.org/bond-and-override-elections (district call of election and informational pamphlet: $66,500,000; project list; estimated average annual tax rate $0.54 per $100 NAV; ballot designation Measure 436)
Result pending. No verified call (Associated Press or official) as of November 4, 2026. This page will be updated when the race is called or certified. The original article above is unchanged.
AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.