The Legislature has ended the regular session, adopting a final version of the new state budget in the middle of the night and then passing a final bushel of bills in the wee hours before voting to adjourn sine die.
But many lawmakers predicted Gov. Jan Brewer would veto most, if not all, of the budget package and call lawmakers back in a special session as soon as Monday. KJZZ radio reported this morning that the doors to the Senate building where briefly locked while lawmakers were still debating bills, apparently in an attempt to prevent Brewer from sending back a vetoed budget before the Legislature could adjourn at about 7:30 a.m.
Now, the Arizona Guardian speculates that Brewer could sign portions of the spending bills to keep “essential” government services operating while using her line-item veto powers to reject the rest.
A note placed at the top of the Arizona Department of Administration’s home page at 5:30 a.m. urged all state employees to report to work today. The Arizona State Parks agency had claimed it was closing all but two of its parks at midnight, but its Web site this morning implies the agency has reversed that decision.
Meanwhile, we await word from the governor’s office on what happens next…
UPDATE: Arizona State Parks has announced the agency is reopening all state parks this morning.
Twitter
As a charter school founder, I found watching the budget session until 3:00 am at times amusing and then ignorant. Legislators demanding that teachers have “rights”, that the size of classrooms should be one teacher to 14 students!
I have my fourth grade class picture which has 36 students and one teacher. It is ludicrous to suggest that class sizes have to be 14 students in order for great learning to go on. Legislators were whinning that this budget would mean we would be forced to have class sizes with one teacher and 24 students. Give me a break!
I have been in the school business for over 40 years, the private/charter school business, and have hired and fired hundreds of teachers. The very best teachers who take their children two or three academic grade levels in one year, inthe basics, say the size of the class does’t matter. In the beginning grades, teachers do need aids to reduce the teacher/student ratio in order to listen to each child read everyday.
Arizona does not have any more money. You can’t get money from strapped taxpayers. They have had enough. Cut the spending, even on schools, and get us out of debt.
It’s july 2nd, the sky didn’t fall, we aren’t dropping like flies, riots aren’t breaking out on every street corner. A few people will be inconvenienced, but aside from a bunch of rude and arrogant people ordering us around, little has changed, even though we lack a budget. Live with this a while, then decide what we really, really, need beyond it. Then restore about half of it, just to be sure we really, really want it.
Fact is that most of government is an unnecessary waste of time and money. We’ve got the minimum, let’s add back to it sparingly, carefully, and minimally.