With the state budget still very much in flux, it looks like there might be enough money to bring the education budget back to zero—no increases, no cuts. The earlier net $21 million cut to education seems to have been negotiated away, though nothing is written in stone until it’s written into law. Also unwritten is whether roads and the Health Insurance Trust Fund will have to take a hit to add the money the Republican leadership wanted to steal from the education budget—which, it can’t be said too often, is still $350 million lower than demanded by the law voted in by taxpayers in 2000.
Our universities are getting some money added to the budget, though that’s certainly not a case of Republicans getting generous with education. What’s being added is nowhere near the $100 million taken away from the universities last year, and $5 million of the money is earmarked for the “economic freedom schools” set up by the Koch Brothers.
Meanwhile, according to Howard Fischer’s coverage this morning, it looks like there’s enough money lying around to increase the budget for a few items. For instance, we have $26 million to create a new Border Security Strike Force. And there’s another $17 million for the folks who run our private prisons to put in a thousand more beds.
This looks like a good thing: $1.6 million to set up a community correction center in Maricopa County, like the one in Pima County, to deal with parole violators rather than sending them back to prison. Logic says that should mean we don’t need all those new prison beds unless people think we need to add more mass to our current mass incarceration system, but we already signed the contract with the private prison corporation, so that’s a moot point.
There’s money to make I-10 three lanes wide each way near Picacho, which may be a good idea, though it doesn’t do anything to fix our deteriorating roads.
And of course there’s plenty of money to dole out millions in tax cuts for businesses.
It looks like KidCare won’t get the expansion on the federal dime that would give health insurance to 30,000 children. It would pass easily if it were put to a vote, but the leadership won’t allow it to be put to a vote.
Everything in the proposed budget is subject to change without notice. Watch this space.
This article appears in Apr 28 – May 4, 2016.
Know what else there’s plenty of budget for? Illegals, tens of thousands of them. Exploited by the open border liberals for the confiscated tax dollars that follow each one of them with full knowledge that 85% of females are raped coming across the border.
“Analysis of the latest Census data indicates that Arizona’s illegal immigrant population is costing the state’s taxpayers about $1.3 billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration. Even if the estimated tax contributions of illegal immigrant workers are subtracted, net outlays still amount to about $1.3 billion per year. The annual fiscal burden borne by Arizonans amounts to more than $700 per household headed by a native-born resident.”
http://www.fairus.org/publications/the-costs-of-illegal-immigration-to-arizonans-2004
States (run by leftinistas) have found budget money to try to silence the voice of those that disagree with their plan for an economic takeover because of global warming. Yet NASA has been caught lying about temperatures and sea levels. I know it sure seems hotter but it isn’t.
The bigger the lie the easier it is to fool people.
Boo Hoo Safier. As a sycophant for Obama you should know that “elections have consequences” More in prison = fewer criminals on our streets = lower crime rate in Tucson — GOOD! We obviously need a Border Patrol Strike Force as Obama will not enforce our borders and we end up educating a providing welfare and bearing the crime impact of a number (unreported to taxpayers) of illegals. There are tens of thousands of them. So Pima County wants to increase Property Taxes to pay for them. A budget is about living within your means – a novel untouchable value to Democrats!
Seriously, do you actually think anything they say they are going to do will happen? While you are whistling past the budgetary graveyard and thinking happy thoughts about what they are discussing, check your wallet. If there is one thing that we can count on from the current Arizona legislature is they will do whatever is required to keep their backroom promises to those who put them in power, and I am not talking about the voters. FYI – the money to spend on the Border Security Strike Force is seed money to help tap into all that federal money for local law enforcement, and of course the further militarization of the border will go a long way toward making the Trumplodytes thump their chests with grunt of approval.
I would vote for someone who actually ran on a platform of fixing roads. That’s not the Republicans who just want money for tax cuts for their rich buddies and weird pet projects, or the Democrats who always have some scheme to redistribute wealth that never comes to anything.
I actually think that the Legislature is taking its time on the budget while waiting for the Special Election on Prop 123. If it passes, then they can redo the budget and again remove the funding for the schools.
Either the results of the Prop 123 Election need to be withheld from release or the Budget needs to be signed before May 17.
So true bslap. Voters are simply looking for the basics in government obligations. (Those which they have ignored for years) That’s exactly why Trump is appealing to so many. They want it shaken up a little.