A proposal to help balance the fiscal 2003 state budget by requiring the State Compensation Fund to funnel some of its money to the general fund as part of a $250 million sale of state land and other assets has been delayed a year courtesy of Washington D.C. politics.

To win congressional approval of his tax package, President Bush sweetened the pot with millions of dollars in aid to revenue-strapped states. Arizona’s share, $308 million, will arrive in time to enable the Legislature to delay the Compensation Fund revenue shift until fiscal 2004, Senate Finance Chairman Dean Martin, R-Dist. 6, said.

“The ’03 budget still has $50 million in Comp Fund revenue,” Mr. Martin said, “but the ’04 revenue has been replaced by the federal money. The bill still has to move forward because of the $50 million for ’03, and we’ll adjust the date of the $250 million to ’05, because we’re going to need it next year to balance the ’05 budget. This gives us two years to deal with the asset sales instead of one.”

The Compensation Fund/Asset Sale bill is H2195. It needs only a final House vote to go to the governor unless it is put into conference committee to make the date change (which also could be made in a separate bill).