March 23 , 2009
I was pleased to welcome (along with Sen. Ron Gould and Rep. Doris Goodale) the "Tri-Cities Council" to Phoenix this past week, enjoying a productive luncheon with the mayors of the three largest cities in District 3. They were accompanied by city council members, city staff, and representatives of the Mohave County Water Authority. We were also joined by Senate President Bob Burns and House Speaker Kirk Adams. This was a great opportunity for the mayors to present items of concern to legislative leadership, and they made the best of it. Most important on the agenda was the issue of "state shared revenues," by which the state shares approximately 15% of state income taxes with cities and towns. This is in lieu of those entities enacting their own tax. I don't anticipate any change in the formula for 2010, but there is an issue of $17 million from a previous year that is yet to be resolved. My position is that we owe the cities this money, but that we don't have the resources to pay it this year. I'm for carrying it forward until we again have surplus revenues.
Another item of concern discussed at great length was HB2142, which is the same bill I ran last year as HB2132. This would change the designation of 3500 acre feet of water, held by the Water Authority, from "industrial" to "municipal." All three mayors, two of the three County supervisors, and two of the three elected state legislators are in favor. I discussed this in several "weekly reports" last year, and for those interested they can be accessed in the Archives section. But briefly, there has been no call in over 13 years for the industrial water; the definition of municipal water is "anything other than agriculture;" and changing the designation does not mean that it could not be allocated for an industrial purpose. We enjoyed a very frank and enlightening exchange, but it remains to be seen if Sen. Gould will continue his opposition.
On the legislative front, all of my 18 bills have now successful passed their committees. Some have been released from Rules and are awaiting floor action. I'm not anticipating any problems in getting the others through that final test, but the Speaker has asked the chairman to be selective in how many he processes because of the inaction in the Senate. The President is still not allowing any bills (with very few exceptions) to be heard in the Senate until the 2010 budget is completed. So there's not much point in our rushing to complete our work, only to sit and wait for the Senate to begin theirs. I, along with many others, am beginning to be quite concerned that once the budget is done, members will want to "escape" from the Capitol and return to their real lives. This could mean an abbreviated session, with not much legislation being passed this year. Only a few of my bills are what I would consider critical for this year, and we may be asked to choose which we want to see go forward. I'll be working on my short list, just in case.
By not securing enough votes to pass as an emergency measure, we failed to implement a change in policy that would have been beneficial to all school districts but especially important for the rurals. There is an arbitrary deadline of April 15 by which school districts must notify non-tenured teachers whether or not their contracts are going to be renewed for the coming year. For tenured teachers and other contract staff, the deadline is May 15th. With all the budget uncertainties, the districts asked that we extend that deadline to June 15th. Without that change, they will be sending out more "pink slips" than will most likely be necessary. But they can't responsibly take the chance of having more contracts than money to pay for them. The Arizona Education Association (AEA -- the teachers' union) took a position against the bill, and all but one Democrat voted against it. It also failed to attain the required 20 votes in the Senate, but I haven't checked to see if there were any defections there. So a great number of teachers will be told they won't back next year, when in reality once the numbers are finalized they will be needed. How many will still be available is anyone's guess.
Incidentally, not all the decreases in revenue to the school districts have anything to do with legislative action. For one, because of Prop 301 schools receive additional funding from a 1/2% sales tax increase enacted by the voters. But because of the state of the economy, sales tax revenues are down. Indian gaming revenues are also down, and schools receive money from that source. In many instances, enrollment is declining, which means less per pupil revenue. All in all, there are about 10 areas of declining school funding which are totally separate from any actions we may take.
We know we will be able to backfill some money be using the "stimulus" funds. The problem is that those funds are totally at the discretion of the Governor, and we have yet to hear from her how she expects to use them. Additionally, there are restrictions -- some of which could result in money not being used where it could be most effective. JLBC staff and the Governor's finance people are still working on the details, another reason why postponing the deadline for contract renewals made sense.
For those who would like more information about school finance and what's happening with funding, I recommend a web site authored by Rep. Rich Crandall, chairman of the House Education Committee: www.EducateAZ.org .
I continue to work with other members of the House and Senate Appropriations committees as we scrutinize the 2010 baseline budget for areas where we can reduce spending. We expect to be finished with that work this coming week. Then we will draft a budget that will become the starting point for negotiations, both with other members and the Governor. Some are predicting a budget out by April 15th, but I think that's being very optimistic. Hope I'm wrong!
Until Next Week,
Nancy
Rep. Nancy McLain
602-926-5051
nmclain@azleg.gov
Nancy McLain, District 3, Arizona House of Representatives
nmclain@azleg.gov or
nmclainbhc@aol.com