Archive for June, 2009
June 30th, 2009, 9:41 pm by Le Templar
 Gov. Janet Brewer At this hour, the state of House of Representatives is moving to approve a $8.4 billion budget that would include most of the items requested by Brewer. But the package doesn’t include a statewide election for a temporary 1-cent sales tax increase that Brewer has insisted is necessary to avoid decimating education and health care programs. I suggested earlier today this could happen. The Senate Rules Committee reversed itself and signed off on the sales tax election at 8 p.m., according the Arizona Capitol Times. But I still don’t think there’s the necessary 16 votes in the full Senate for final approval.
According to Capitol Media Services, Brewer has been careful not to repeat her veto threat in public today. Instead, she has tried to sound optimistic that she would reach some compromise with the Legislature. But the Democrats won’t have anything to do with the Republican-drafted budget plan at this point. Neither Brewer nor legislative leaders have been able to swing enough GOP legislative votes for a sales tax election.
The fiscal year ends at midnight, and if Brewer hasn’t signed a budget, presumably a wide swath of state agencies will lack the authority to keep operating. State parks already were closing this afternoon and Motor Vehicle Disivion offices could be locked up tight tomorrow. However, school districts should expect to receive their share of a $600 million payment that’s due, and public higher education campuses plan to stay open because they are funded from a variety of sources besides those monies appropriated by the Legislature. Brewer’s office has yet to disclose how other state agencies will be handled if a budget doesn’t exist on Wednesday.
Posted in: Arizona Legislature • Arizona government • Governor • Jan Brewer • State budget countdown | Post a Comment »
June 30th, 2009, 5:57 pm by Le Templar
 Senate President Bob Burns (left) confers Tuesday with Sen. John Huppenthal, R-Chandler, on the final day of the state fiscal year. (Capitol Media Services photo by Howard Fischer). There’s just six hours left in Arizona’s fiscal year, and there’s plenty of rumors flying around the Valley and across the state about what the Legislature and the governor are doing behind closed doors to finish a budget before a government shutdown (although that already has started). But the calculus comes down to Gov. Jan Brewer wants a sales tax election to offset the deepest budget cuts to education and health care. Democrats and Republicans alike won’t give that election to her (for different political reasons). That leaves lawmakers with two choices:
1. Adopt a short-term budget that covers a few days or weeks, giving all sides more time to negotiate over spending details or,
2. Send Brewer the budget already adopted June 4, with or without the revisions that have moved somewhat through the legislative process in the past few days. Then, start pointing fingers if Brewer vetoes that budget and prompts a partial government shutdown.
I know Republican leadership has draft legislation for a short-term budget. But Senate President Bob Burns and House Speaker Kirk Adams have spent so much time today trying to salvage the budget deal struck with Brewer that they are physically running out of time to get these new bills introduced and approved by midnight. It’s doable now. In three or four hours, it’s far less likely.
By the way, the House and Senate have been doing the special committee dances and bill exchanges that typically signal the last day of the regular session is here. But my guess is if Brewer does drop the veto stamp on the budget, she also calls a special session immediately so lawmakers can’t disappear into the night and leave the governor facing angry Arizonans by herself.
Posted in: Arizona Legislature • Arizona government • Governor • Bob Burns • Jan Brewer • Kirk Adams • State budget countdown | Post a Comment »
June 30th, 2009, 5:13 pm by Le Templar
 Lake Havasu State Park We’re about seven hours away from a real government shutdown, but Arizona state parks already are closing in expectation that the Legislature and the governor won’t finish a budget by midnight.
A news release says park rangers started telling people in state campgrounds at 4 p.m. today to leave. All but two of the state parks will shut down indefinitely. Parks near Show Low and Lake Havasu City will stay open as part of an agreement to have the local municipalities operate them until the state is back in business.
Posted in: Arizona Legislature • Arizona government • Governor • Arizona state parks • State budget countdown | Post a Comment »
June 30th, 2009, 2:28 pm by Le Templar
 Sen. Jay Tibshraeny, R-Chandler, waits to make a point Tuesday as legislators discuss elements of the budget proposal (Capitol Media Services photo by Howard Fischer). Frantic budget negotiations continue behind closed doors at the state Capitol at this hour. Rep. David Lujan, D-Phoenix, has sent out word by Twitter that Gov. Jan Brewer is directly involved in trying to convince individual Democrats to vote for at least the proposed sales tax election that could minimize the more than $600 billion in budget cuts.
Meanwhile, the Senate took some votes on unrelated bills and, according to the live Web broadcast, several senators used their speaking time to talk more about the budget. Several Democrats decried the funding reductions and policy changes for school districts, with Sen. Paula Aboud, D-Tucson, describing the proposed budget as “an insult to teachers and to all of the work you do.”
Sen. John Huppenthal, R-Chandler and a likely candidate for schools superintendent next year, defended the Republican approach.
“Those comments are partisan and incorrectly describe what has been done as we have wrapped ourselves around the axle trying to limit cuts to education.,” he said.
Sen. Jay Tibshraeny, R-Chandler, wanted to know why they were taking any votes on unrelated bills. After all, there’s only 9.5 hours until the current fiscal year ends. “Let’s get on with the budget,” Tibshraeny said.
Posted in: Uncategorized • David Lujan • Jay Tibshraeny • John Huppenthal • Paula Aboud • State budget countdown | Post a Comment »
June 30th, 2009, 1:15 pm by Le Templar
The Senate Rules Committee this morning punched a huge hole in the proposed budget deal — by rejecting the bill that would create a temporary increase in the state sales tax and spells out how the money would be spent. Oddly, enough the Legislature’s Web site shows the same committee signed off on a separate bill that would authorize a special statewide election in November to approve that sales tax increase.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives appears to be heading toward action on the budget deal, but without either the sales tax election or the proposed switch in 2012 from graduated income tax system to a flat rate, which was supposed to be the inducement for fiscal conservatives to support the temporary sales tax. That would imply legislative Republicans are ready to send Gov. Jan Brewer a budget with a lot of the changes she wanted, but without any hope of mitigating the education and health care funding cuts that she opposes.
Brewer has been threatening for weeks to veto the entire budget if it doesn’t include a sales tax election or similar alternative. But does she have the backbone to veto a budget on the final day of the fiscal year and start shutting down portions of state government that aren’t protected by the state constitution?
Posted in: Arizona Legislature • Arizona government • Governor • Jan Brewer • State budget countdown | Post a Comment »
June 30th, 2009, 7:20 am by Le Templar
This is it; the last day of fiscal year 2008-2009 for Arizona state government. State lawmakers now have until midnight, or about 17 hours from now as I write, to adopt some kind of budget plan that Gov. Jan Brewer will sign — or risk a government shutdown once Brewer’s administration and independent state agencies lose their spending authority. A shutdown would affect everything from the Department of Public Safety to the prison system to the state’s three public universities to local school districts that depend on state funds to pay their bills. Health care for the poor and disabled, child abuse investigations, state parks and services for veterans all could be stopped immediately.
The budget deal reached last week between Brewer and the top two legislative leaders finally passed one test late Monday night, when it was narrowly approved by the Senate Committee on Education Accountability and Reform. The full Senate is scheduled to start debating the proposal shortly after 9:30 a.m. this morning. So far, Senate President Bob Burns doesn’t appear to have enough Republican votes for a statewide sales tax election, which Brewer says must be part of the package. And Democrats insist they are rejecting the entire plan. If the Senate somehow does approve, we don’t know what will happen in the House of Representatives.
Today we find out if the Arizona Legislature and governor are at least as competent as California and the federal government. Those two entities manage to adopt some kind of spending plan to keep government operating even when they can’t manage to agree on a formal budget, most of the time anyway.
Posted in: Arizona Legislature • Arizona government • Governor • Bob Burns • Jan Brewer • State budget countdown | Post a Comment »
June 29th, 2009, 6:11 pm by Le Templar
As I suggested in my last post, Democratic state lawmakers are trying to position the debate about the state budget as “it’s all the Republicans fault” while senators from both sides are now publicly grousing about the lack of progress.
Sen. Rebecca Rios, D-Apache Junction, said her party has been offering for months to help.
“Despite our repeated efforts and literally begging, we have not been included in the budget process,” Rios said.
Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City (who opposed the Brewer-Burns-Adams budget deal) responded that Democratic alternatives fail to acknowledge that state revenues are down 40 percent from last year.
“We need to right-size Arizona’s government,” Gould said. “We need to get spending under control and we need to do it quickly. If we need to shut down state government to do it, so be it.”
Sen. Jim Waring, R-Phoenix, showed frustration with his colleagues from both parties.
“One thing that isn’t going to get the budget done is if we keep talking here (on the Senate floor),” Waring said. “Shhh. Stop talking. Let’s back to committee and let’s get the work done.”
Meanwhile, Senate President Bob Burns just removed all of the budget trailer bills from the Senate Appropriations Committee (which blocked the main bill this morning) and assigned them to the “more friendly” Committee on Education Accountability and Reform. The committee is expected to meet shortly. This means the budget deal is still kicking, even if it’s on life support.
Posted in: Uncategorized • State budget countdown | Post a Comment »
June 29th, 2009, 4:53 pm by Le Templar
As I write this, it’s 4:50 p.m. Monday. The Senate Appropriations Committee still hasn’t returned to try to take up the budget deal struck late last week between Gov. Jan Brewer, Senate President Bob Burns and House Speaker Kirk Adams. The House Appropriations Committee was scheduled to meet at 11 a.m. to take up the proposed sales tax election and flat rate for income taxes, but hasn’t. Both the full Senate and the House have taken up other matters this afternoon, and there’s no public sign of any movement on the budget at all. It seems likely legislative leaders will have to give up on the deal for now and seek to quickly pass a temporary spending plan to avoid a government shutdown when the fiscal year ends at midnight Tuesday.
Interestingly, Democrats appear to be leaning toward opposing any such move, under the assumption that Brewer and Republicans would receive most of the blame for a government shutdown. But that’s a dangerous political calculation to make, given the likely impact on tens of thousands of state employees and the average people who receive services from them.
UPDATE: I neglected to mention the other option, one that several legislative Republicans support, which is for Senate President Bob Burns to just send Gov. Jan Brewer the original budget that was adopted June 4 and dare her to veto the package. Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, several times today has publicly encouraged that route, suggesting Brewer could veto two bills that include a lot of budget policies she doesn’t like, but still sign into law the basic spending framework for a $8.2 billion budget.
But that would require Brewer to accept defeat in her showdown with members of her own party. She might be willing to test her popularity versus the Legislature by vetoing the entire package and shutting down agencies that don’t have an immediate impact on public safety.
Posted in: Arizona Legislature • Arizona government • Governor • Bob Burns • Jan Brewer • Kirk Adams • State budget countdown | Post a Comment »
June 29th, 2009, 11:22 am by Le Templar
 Sen. Sylvia Allen attempts to convince Sen. Jack Harper, kneeling on the floor, to vote for a $8.4 billion spending plan in the Senate Appropriatiions Committee on Monday. Harper and Sen. Ron Gould refused to go along, as did all the Democrats on the panel, leaving Sen. Russell Pearce, seated, chairman of the committee, without the votes for approval (Capitol Media Services photo by Howard Fischer). The Senate Appropriations Committee just failed to pass the main budget trailer bill, which would make changes to all of the spending appropriations adopted in the June 4 budget package. Three Republicans joined one Democrat in voting against the bill (a number of committee members seem to be absent), with Republican Sens. Ron Gould and Jack Harper saying the deal with Gov. Jan Brewer is “a step backwards” in solving the $3.3 billion deficit.
UPDATE: The Senate Appropriations Committee tried to reconsider the bill a few minutes later, but this time several absent Democrats showed up (they plan to vote against the budget deal) and Harper and Gould said they were still voting “no.” Committee chairman Russell Pearce figured out he still does not have the votes to pass the main budget bill and recessed the committee for a second time.
Perhaps it’s back to the drawing board for Brewer, Senate President Bob Burns and House Speaker Kirk Adams.
Posted in: Uncategorized • Bob Burns • Jack Harper • Jan Brewer • Kirk Adams • Ron Gould • State budget countdown | Post a Comment »
June 29th, 2009, 10:22 am by Le Templar
My last post on Saturday was about how two key elements of the state budget deal between the governor and legislative leaders had stalled — the proposed statewide election on temporary sales tax increase and switching the graduated income tax to a flat rate starting in 2012. But that doesn’t mean those proposals, or the entire budget deal, are dead. Far from it.
With just one day to go before the end of the fiscal year, all eyes are on the state Senate this morning as the Appropriations Committee is scheduled to take up most of the proposed deal. But the tax elements are slated to be heard in the Senate Committee on Education Accountability and Reform. That’s because Senate Appropriations Chairman Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, refuses to consider a sales tax increase in any form, but education committee Chairman John Huppenthal, R-Chandler, has championed the flat-rate income tax proposal.
If the two Senate committees actually approve the entire budget deal, and there’s hope the full Senate will do the same, then the House Appropriations Committee can take up the tax bills this afternoon and the full House also could act on the budget sometime (late?) tonight.
If that doesn’t happen, it likely legislative leaders will try on Tuesday to push through a temporary plan to continue this fiscal year’s budget for a few weeks to avoid an immediate government shutdown. I’m not at the Capitol today, but I’ll try to keep an eye on committee hearings and any floor action through the Legislature’s popular live Web streaming.
Posted in: Arizona Legislature • Arizona government • Governor • John Huppenthal • Russell Pearce • State budget countdown | Post a Comment »
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