The legal fight over how millions in career and technical education dollars are divided in the East Valley intensified last week, with the East Valley Institute of Technology urging a judge to throw out a lawsuit filed by nine member school districts.
In a reply filed March 23 in Maricopa County Superior Court, EVIT rebuffed a request the nine districts filed a week earlier.
The nine districts had urged the judge to reject EVIT’s earlier bid to have the lawsuit adjudicated on the basis of what has already been filed in the suit rather than allow for the usual discovery, legal argument and possible trial.
EVIT in turn last week argued that the dispute is not something a judge can resolve — but instead must be settled through negotiation between the parties.
At the center of the case is funding for and supervision of the EVIT-approved career and technical education (CTE) programs on the campuses of the districts’ high schools.
The districts are also challenging the amount of state funds that EVIT retains for its two Mesa campuses.
EVIT’s action marks the latest effort to force the nine districts into negotiations over millions in state funding passed through EVIT to nine of the 12 public school districts for running CTE programs at their high schools.
Those negotiations reached an impasse last fall after the nine districts refused to give EVIT more control over those programs and accept less money for running them.
Mesa Public Schools, American Leadership Academy and Scottsdale Unified last year reached new agreements with EVIT, one of 14 CTE districts in Arizona.
Those that sued it instead are Apache Junction, Cave Creek, Chandler, Fountain Hills, Higley, J.O. Combs and Queen Creek unified school districts, Tempe Union High School District and Gilbert Public Schools.
The intergovernmental agreements (IGAs) include EVIT’s funding and supervision of satellite CTE programs serving over 26,000 juniors and seniors.
Districts belonging to EVIT also send about 8,000 high school juniors and seniors to EVIT’s two Mesa campuses for other CTE programs for half their school day throughout the year.
The nine districts say they’ve nearly exhausted funds for their on-site CTE programs and funding for the 2026-27 school year remains in limbo amid the stalemate with EVIT.
EVIT has withheld all funds for the districts’ current school year, saying it legally cannot disperse them without an IGA.
In its filing last week, EVIT says the districts’ response to its earlier motion confirms what it has argued all along — that the case hinges on a “pure question of law,” not factual disputes about how programs are run.
“As the districts themselves acknowledge, this case presents ‘a straightforward legal question,’” it said. “The answer is equally straightforward: decisions regarding the apportionment of EVIT satellite ADM funding are committed to the parties through negotiation and contract, not to the court through declaratory relief.”
Specifically, EVIT contends that Arizona law does not establish any formula for dividing funding generated by satellite programs.
Instead, it says, the statute requires EVIT and its member districts to work out those terms through intergovernmental agreements.
The districts argued in a filing early this month that the law imposes “substantive statutory guardrails” on how EVIT can apportion funding and requires collaboration, proportional cost calculations, prohibitions on retaining excess money and itemized documentation.
They also said that historically, EVIT passed through between 79% and 87% of the satellite-program funding to member districts.
In February 2025, the districts proposed increasing that rate to 90%, saying they had consistently operated the programs at a loss.
But they say EVIT later proposed cutting the pass-through to “up to 70%” and did so without explanation.
EVIT’s latest filing did not directly address those percentage disputes but instead focuses on the legal framework governing how such decisions must be made.
The districts reject EVIT’s claim that the satellite programs are “services” and that state law bars payments above their cost. They said their courses cost more than what EVIT wants passing through.
They also charge that EVIT could not explain how keeping more money would comply with the statute if it was providing little or no support to the district-run programs.
“The answer is no,” EVIT stated last week on whether the law imposes a judicially enforceable funding formula.
Because of that, EVIT argues the court cannot step in to impose limits on how funding is divided or force the parties into an agreement.
EVIT also contended the districts themselves acknowledge key points have undermined their case by acknowledging that the law requires collaboration and does not set a fixed funding formula.
The districts, EVIT notes, have also said they are not asking the court to impose a specific formula or require EVIT to enter into an intergovernmental agreement — positions EVIT says contradict their broader claims.
The case hinges on competing interpretations of Arizona Revised Statutes § 15-393, which governs how career and technical education districts operate and are funded.
Districts argue the law places limits on how much funding EVIT can retain and requires proportional sharing based on the costs of running programs.
EVIT counters that those limits do not exist and that imposing them would require the court to “read into” the law provisions the Legislature did not include.
The agency also argues that the districts’ interpretation would lead to impractical outcomes – including leaving funds in the hands of districts that could not legally be spent.
The districts have argued the case should move forward into discovery, saying factual questions remain about the level of services EVIT provides and how it uses retained funding.
EVIT rejects that argument, saying those issues are secondary to the core legal question of what the statute requires.
“At bottom,” EVIT states, “this dispute is a political and contractual impasse, not a justiciable dispute.”
If the judge agrees, the lawsuit could end without further proceedings. If not, the dispute could stretch into the summer as both sides gather evidence and continue negotiations.
