John --

Welcome back to our weekly updates from the capitol! As I’ve done in previous years, I will be writing these newsletters every week to give you a behind the scenes look at what’s going on at the state capitol.

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We kicked off our 2020 legislative session last week, where we heard from the governor and his annual State of the State address. He uses this address to preview what will be in his budget proposal, and what issues he would like to see addressed this year.

Last Friday the governor released his official budget proposal — keep in mind that this is not a final document, and is merely what the governor would like to see in the budget. The Senate majority caucus released a document outlining their priorities, and the House majority caucus is expected to do so in the coming days.

Overall, there is a lot to like in the governor’s proposal. You may have heard that the state is running another surplus this year, with estimates being around $700 million. There are many needs to be addressed through the budget process, including our K-12 schools, higher education, infrastructure, our state prisons, and many more.

Thankfully, the governor’s proposal addresses several issues our caucus has been advocating for many years. K-12 District Additional Assistance (or DAA for short, which covers maintenance and infrastructure needs for schools) is going to finally be fully restored, which will cost over $150 million.

Higher education will begin to see some new investments as well, both at the community college and university levels. Dollars will go to infrastructure needs around the state, including several bridges in rural Arizona and dollars for widening the I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson.

All good things, but my favorite part of the proposal is to allocate $38 million ongoing for more school counselors in our schools. The governor’s proposal last year initially allocated only $6 million, so to go from there to $38 million this year is a huge leap, and I am thankful to the governor’s office for making this a priority.

I like what I’ve seen so far, and I’m looking forward to two briefings I will receive later today as a member of the Senate Appropriations committee, where we will be able to ask the governor’s office questions about their proposal. I am also getting briefed from our legislative staff about the particulars in each section of the governor’s proposal.

This has the potential to be a bipartisan budget, but there is still a long way to go. One thing we will be keeping an eye on is “poison pills,” which would be inserting controversial issues into the overall budget document that might please a handful of legislators, but would make the overall budget more difficult to vote for. This could be a controversial social idea, or funding for a program that we do not support. We ALWAYS have to keep an eye out for these for each budget we pass, so an insertion of one of these “poison pills” could blow up the entire process.

As I often say in this space, stay tuned. :)

BILLS UPDATE

I’m working on quite a few bills this year. I usually only drop about 6–7 bills per year, and I try to focus on bills that have a realistic view of progressing through the legislature. I’m not one of those members who drop dozens of bills that have zero chance of passing — I’ve proved that in recent years by passing multiple bills into law.

I’ll be dropping two bills centered on school counselors in the next day or two. One would allocate additional state funding to get our student-to-counselor ratio down to 250:1, which is the recommended ratio per school. Arizona’s ratio is currently over 900:1, which is the worst in the country. The second would expand our Arizona Teachers Academy, a program that helps pay university tuition for teachers who commit to teaching in Arizona after graduation, and include counselors and social workers.

I am also working on several bills related to mental health support in our K-12 schools, to continue the work from last session after we passed into law SB 1468, which requires training in suicide prevention for all school personnel in grades 6–12. These bills look at other ways we can help students — one would allow students to take “mental health days,” or allow an absence to be excused if it’s for a mental health reason. A second bill would require high schools and universities that offer student ID cards to have a suicide prevention phone number on the back of the card.

I am also running my community college “promise” program bill again, which would cover two years of tuition and fees for lower income students who go into CTE (Career and Technical Education) programs. The cost would be $5 million per year for four years, and it’s a program we could market to high school students as an incentive for them to enroll in one of these fields. The bill passed the Senate unanimously last year, and I will push for this to be included in the budget this year.

I also have several bills to support our LGBTQ community here in Arizona, with the two main bills being expanding non-discrimination protections statewide, and for the third year in a row, I will be introducing a bill to ban conversion therapy for minors in the state.

That’s a lot of bills, and I’m also partnering with colleagues on both sides of the aisle on other pieces of legislation relating to health care, the environment, infrastructure, and many more issues. Stay tuned!

I hope you enjoyed this week’s update — stay tuned every Tuesday morning for more updates! And starting next Monday, I will also post a weekly video on social media outlining the week ahead at the Senate.

Thank you for all your help and support — please consider a contribution today as we gear up for this fall!

Thank you,

Sean

http://www.seanbowieforaz.com/

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