Governor Napolitano says she is nearly ready to hand down executive directives for changes at Child Protective Services and may also add CPS law changes to the subjects for the special session she is expected to call before year’s end.

“I’m actively considering whether it should be included in the call,” she said. “I haven’t made any decisions. We are identifying what should be included in the call. I need to sit down with legislative leadership and talk with them about where they are.”

But, she added, “We are not going to wait for the Legislature” before ordering change that is within her office’s authority.

Legislative committees held hearings the week of Sept. 7 on CPS, an agency widely criticized as a result of publicity about instances of abuse and even death among children whose home-life problems had been reported to the state and handled by CPS.

A statewide series of public hearings on CPS problems arranged by the governor’s office was concluded Sept. 8 in Tucson.

“We’re preparing a final set of plans and recommendations, both for the Legislature and for the agency and, hopefully, will have that out in the next few weeks, certainly by the end of the month,” the governor said at her weekly news briefing Sept. 9.

Other issues that have been mentioned as possible subjects for a special session or sessions are prison overcrowding, repeal of a new income-tax withholding minimum and impeachment proceedings for embattled Corporation Commissioner Jim Irvin.

The Economy

The governor said at her briefing the Arizona economy is “on its way back,” but slowly.

“I think we’ll meet our [fiscal 2004] projections contained in the ’04 budget,” she said. “We met and exceeded the ’03 projections.”

Ms. Napolitano said the loss of manufacturing jobs in Arizona and nationally remains an issue, “and I don’t know anybody that has a silver bullet for that.”

She said the state economy is not rebounding as robustly as it did after a downturn in 1991. “But it certainly is on its way back.” —