To the editor:

How to … launder $2 million.

In 2018, the Vail Unified School District (VUSD) reached out to the state of Arizona for a piece of property to locate a new VUSD high school. The Arizona state board responds to get a licensed appraisal of the property, located at Houghton and Valencia. The VUSD puts out to bid, for a local appraisal company, for an 86+ acre lot, owned by the state. Bids are submitted, a bid is awarded, and the appraisal comes back at $4.2 million and change.

The VUSD puts into their already enormous budget the appraised value of $4.1 million and change, to purchase said property. In the fall of 2018, less than 6 months later (mind you), the state comes back with “their own appraisal” (from a state-licensed appraiser) for the exact same property at a whopping $6.1 million and change; yikes!

So, what happened in less than 6 months? Remember the election in 2018 for Proposition 468? Before the election, the property was valued at $4.2 million. After the election, since Proposition 468 passed with less than 400 provisional ballots, the exact same piece of property now values at $6.1 million!

Now, for Mr. Baker and the VUSD governing board state, this is not an issue. “Since the state is funding the property, it doesn’t matter what the price is – since they are paying the bill.” Really? So how do you launder $2 million? Move it from a state education budget and put it into a general budget. What does this mean? Payroll, salaries, and bonuses. That is how you launder $2 million.

Leon Boerup

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