John --

Good morning, and welcome to our second JUNE legislative update!

It’s June 13^th, and we still do not have a state budget. In fact, we are not close to a state budget deal. We have two and a half weeks to pass a $14 billion plus budget and hopefully adjourn the session. No pressure!

It’s crunch time at the capitol. The biggest news last week was the “leak” of the first proposed budget spreadsheet (you can read more about the specifics thanks to the fine folks at the Arizona Agenda here).

Now, some background on how this process works. Majority leadership and the governor’s office have been huddling for weeks to put together a budget spreadsheet that they all support. The spreadsheet is a long list of funding items, both on-going and one-time. It identifies how much money is available, and it goes line by line over what the items are and how much money is allocated to them. It starts with the on-going items, then goes to the one-time requests.

Most of the legislature is largely kept in the dark during this process. It’s majority leadership, a few committee chairs, and the governor’s office. Once this team of people have some semblance of an agreement, they then hold “small group meetings” with members of the majority to go over the budget spreadsheet and what the items represent. Not usually included in this process: any members of the minority party!

An important point to make here: the actual budget is not written yet. That only happens when majority leadership feels a deal is close and they have the 16 votes in the Senate and 31 votes in the House they need to pass the budget.

Spoiler alert: we are not close.

The budget documents that leaked last week fell short in a couple of key areas. As I have shared in previous updates, we have a massive budget surplus at the moment: our ongoing surplus is projected to be over $1.5 billion, and our one-time surplus is projected to be about $3.7 billion. Naturally, there are a lot of ideas about what to do with those dollars from my colleagues at the state capitol.

Now, there are some spending items in this budget proposal that are good ideas and are programs that I support. These include:

-About $1 billion one-time for infrastructure projects around the state, including $400 million for widening the I-10 between Chandler and Casa Grande;

-About $1 billion one-time dedicated to paying down state debt and increasing several of our state-funded pension programs for public safety officials and state employees;

-Increasing our reimbursement rates for our developmentally disabled providers (something our caucus has been asking for years);

-A $100 million ongoing investment in special education programs at our K-12 schools;

-A $30 million one-time investment into affordable housing programs (although I’d like this to be higher and on-going instead of one-time);

Where does the budget draft fall short? Oh, let’s count the ways:

-Not enough investment in our K-12 public schools. As highlighted above, the $100 million on-going for special education is a good start, but the proposal some of my colleagues and I have been working on would dedicate a much higher amount to our K-12 public schools. We are asking for a commitment of at least $800 million - $900 million ongoing, which we can afford given our budget surplus and is desperately needed. The budget also does a shell game where it cuts property taxes by over $300 million and backfills that amount with general fund revenues. This makes it LOOK like it’s new additional spending when really, it’s not.

-Not enough investment in our state universities and community colleges. Every year, the legislature seeks to approve new funding for our state universities on a one-time basis. That trend continues this year, and it also does the same for our community colleges in Maricopa County as well. I would like to see these investments be stronger and be on-going to better educate our workforce and grow our economy.

-My state earned income tax credit, SB 1018, is not included. It would cost about $75 million and was featured in the governor’s executive budget proposal in January. Why is it not included now? It’s a leverage play to try to get me on the budget. If I vote for the budget, it will likely get added.

-There is over $500 million for a “border security fund,” with over $350 million dedicated to a “fence.” It’s going to be hard to get bipartisan votes for a budget deal with that much money for a border wall, especially when the federal government has been paying for the cost of border wall construction.

As I told my Republican colleagues in leadership last week, I think there is a path to a bipartisan deal. It would involve scaling back the border security fund and increasing our investments in K-12 and higher education (and I’m partial to my Earned Income Tax Credit getting added as well). If we can do those three things, I think we are 80% of the way there. It requires working together and having substantive conversations about where we agree and what we can live with.

I’m willing to put in the work to get there and get this deal done by the end of the fiscal year this month. Will my colleagues share that same commitment? Stay tuned!

Thank you as always for reading and remember that you can follow me on Facebook and Twitter for more frequent updates!

Take care and all the best,

Sean

http://www.seanbowieforaz.com/

Paid for by Sean Bowie for State Senate. Authorized by Sean Bowie.