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.

Republican lawmakers have moved this year to repeal domestic partner benefits for state employees, a policy unilaterally adopted by former Gov. Janet Napolitano. Tucked into the massive budget package is a proposal to retain domestic partner benefits for existing employees but to drop such benefits for future hires.
Rep. Matt Heinz, D-Tucson, just made a motion to remove this section from the related bill, making the argument that this move would restore the domestic partners’ benefit program. Shockingly, all Republicans on the committee voted for his motion. They must believe removing that section would do something different than Heinz expects, perhaps revoking domestic partner benefits across the board?

Debate in the House Appropriations Committee has been derailed for a while by a sudden clash of values related to single parents. The original issue actually dealt a budget proposal to allow the state Department of Health Services to raise licensing fees for daycare centers. But Rep. Rick Murphy, R-Glendale, raised a question related to a separate proposal to limit how often parents can receive state child-care subsidies. Murphy said he’s happy to help a young, single woman who “made a mistake” and needs help to get her life on the right track. But Murphy wants to stop supporting parents who use state subsidies on and off for years.
Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, immediately challenged Murphy’s description, saying she knows many people who either choose to be single parents or once were married and then become single parents through divorce.
After some back and forth, Murphy said Sinema had unreasonably seized on his single example. But he added that people who “choose” to be single parents should do so only if they have the right resources, and not rely on state aid.
Committee chairman John Kavanagh finally managed to get his colleagues to focus back on the bill at hand.

Rep. Steve Court, R-Mesa, responded to the parade of teachers protesting budget cuts by explaining why Republicans believe they have no choice but to reduce funding by $175 million.
“Education is 50 percent of the budget. We are down 30 percent of our revenues. It’s hard to hold education harmless.”
Rep. Rich Crandall, R-Mesa and chairman of the House Education Committee, added the bills are written in a manner to make clear the education budget cuts are temporary, and the state can elevate funding again once (or if?) state tax revenues rebound.
“There are many teachers who understand we all have to sacrifice,” Crandall said.

A number of school teachers have been attending the daylong budget hearing and testifying against it. Most teachers are protesting the size and number of education funding cuts while also permanently repealing the statewide property tax (bringing the tax back at its prior rate would bring in $250 million a year). But Mesa teacher Joe Thomas testified he believes there’s some anti-union politics going on as well, with new rules such as waiving the annual early deadline for notifying teachers if they are going to be fired.
“You can go after the union if you want, but you’re being sloppy about it,” Thomas said. “You’re going to be hitting a lot of people who aren’t in the union. … The result is you are going to be driving more people to join the union.”

One big change in the proposed budget deal is to drop a three-year suspension of local government impact fees charged on new construction. Municipalities such as Queen Creek and Gilbert had claimed this proposed moratorium pushed by home builders would decimate the ability to pay back existing bond debts and force additional local budget cuts. Instead, the budget deal calls for a two-year “freeze,” cities and counties couldn’t raise their current impact fees nor could they impose new versions.