Tempe Union High School District

Tempe UHSD’s fiscal year 2008 administrative costs were similar to comparable districts’, but the District needs to address its cash-handling policies and procedures and discontinue paying for meals for employees who are not on travel status. The District’s transportation program operated efficiently with lower costs than comparable districts’. Its routes were efficient and, likely because most of its bus drivers and assistants were college students, the District had lower salary and benefit costs than comparable districts. The District’s plant operations were also efficient, but costly because most of the District’s schools operated well below their designed capacity. Tempe UHSD’s classroom dollar percentage was higher than the comparable districts’ and the state averages, but could have been higher still had the District not used at least $245,000 of Proposition 301 monies to supplant other district monies, a violation of state law. The District’s ELL program did not fully comply with the State’s ELL model.