One Legislator' View of the Budget Process and Proposed Budget

Kyrsten Sinema (D-Phoenix) wrote the following piece about the recent budget maneuverings. It will shed some light on how quickly we moved from "bipartisan" budget talks to a Republican-only budget which will be proposed tomorrow-- and will cut heavily into public education.

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Sinema's Update on the Budget.

The last time I wrote about the budget, House and Senate leadership were sitting down in bipartisan talks to solve the budget crisis. For three weeks, we met to find agreement and forge a solution. The first two weeks of talks were fairly slow, but then last week was, in my opinion, quite productive.

On Monday of last week, we had a deficit of 3.45 billion. By Thursday afternoon, only 500 million of that deficit remained. We'd agreed on everything else. Speaker Adams requested that House and Senate Democrats take time over the weekend to craft a new proposal to reduce that 500 million dollar deficit with increased cuts to education, AHCCCS, DHS, and DES. We agreed to do so, and asked that House and Senate Republicans also use the weekend to craft their own new proposal that decreased their cut levels - so that we'd meet in the middle. Both sides agreed to work and meet again today at 11 am.

Yesterday morning we watched Republican leadership as they walked up to the Governor's office. Later, they told us that no progress had been made with the Governor and that we were "still on" for today's meeting to swap proposals and negotiate this last 500 million dollars, plus work to get agreement on a revenue source. Meanwhile, we'd heard from Republican members that their leaders had proposed a budget to the Governor and were now seeking to get their members support for their budget.

Still, we worked over the weekend and yesterday to create a new proposal, increasing our cut levels in education, health care, and social services. It wasn't easy to propose cuts to things we care deeply about, but we understand that finding agreement with Republicans in the Legislature means that both sides have to compromise. House and Senate Democratic leadership agreed on a proposal yesterday afternoon.

This morning, House and Senate Democratic leadership held a conference with our members to tell them about our proposal and get their approval to move forward. All agreed, even though we knew it'd be hard to see these cuts. We believe that our proposal, while cutting more than we would like to, is responsible given our deficit. It also protects the things we value most - k-12 and higher education, services for the most vulnerable, and protections for children who are abused or disabled.

Early this morning, we received a copy of the Republicans' proposal to the Governor. At our 11 am meeting with the Republican leadership, they admitted that they were working to get votes for this proposal and planned to pass this new proposal through both chambers tomorrow evening. Our bipartisan talks are apparently over - they've decided to go out on their own instead.

Here's what their budget does:

- Reinstates the June 30th budget, including deep cuts to education, health care, public safety, and social services.

- Creates TABOR (tax payer bill of rights) law that prevents the state from paying for growth, that includes enrollment growth in schools and natural growth of health care (because we have a growing population). TABOR would result in massive, mandatory cuts to education, public safety, health care, and social services in the coming years.

- Refers a question to the November 2009 ballot (a special election costing taxpayers over 10 million dollars!) that asks the voters to suspend Prop 105. Basically, this means that if the voters approved the referendum, the Legislature could take money that is currently safeguarded for k-12 schools, health care, and early childhood programs and spend it on other things in the state budget. The voters would then have no way to protect funding for their priorities.

- Reduces taxes for corporations and the wealthy by up to 650 million dollars per year, starting this very year. This will cost the state $1.175 billion over three years. After that, it's 650 million out of the state coffers every year for ever.

- Refers a question to the November ballot that asks the voters to approve a temporary sales tax increase: 1 cent for the first 5 months, then .75 cent for a year, then .5 cent for a year. All total, if the voters approve this, it will generate about $1.25 billion over three years.



Did those last two points seem strange to you? They should have. Let's do the math.

If the voters approve the sales tax on the ballot this November, then we'll get $1.25 billion in the next three years. If not, then there will be no money to help fill the hole created by our failing economy. Regardless of whether or not the voters approve the sales tax, the tax cuts will occur once the Legislature approves them tomorrow, and they will be permanent. That's $1.175 billion out of the state coffers over the next three years. So, assuming the sales tax passes the ballot in November, that means we'll have just $75 million of new money over three years. That's NOTHING in the context of a $10.2 billion budget (Arizona's normal budget cost). So this is a really, really, really bad deal. It doesn't solve our state's problem because it doesn't make more money during these tough times. We won't have money to fund schools. We won't be able to protect abused kids. We won't be able to help the severely disabled. In fact, we'll have to cut those things even more because we'll have basically no new money, plus that TABOR thing that forces us to cut, cut, cut more.

This deal is much worse than the June 30th budget. It's actually the worst thing I've ever seen.

And they're planning the vote for tomorrow night.


If the Republicans pass this budget and the Governor signs it, we'll see massive hits to our state's vital infrastructure. And even if this sales tax passes at the ballot, we'll see massive cuts to education, public safety, health care, and social services.

Some teachers and friends of education are coming to the capitol tomorrow at 12:30. Come if you can. If you can't, please call your legislators and tell them you know how bad this budget is for Arizona. Ask them to stop it.