Preliminary votes on the ’06 budget proposal could be the week of March 7, with the hope of having a final package to the governor by March 15, the Senate appropriations committee chairman says.

“We’re still shooting for the 65th day” of the session to pass a budget, said Sen. Bob Burns, R-9, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

But Senate and House Democrats say that unless compromises are made on funding for school construction, full-day kindergarten, day-care subsidies and state pay raises proposed by Governor Napolitano, bipartisan agreement on the budget is not possible. Nevertheless, a House Appropriations Committee chairman almost guarantees passage of a budget in that chamber, or else.

Speaker Jim Weiers will “remove himself as speaker… if we send a budget out of this House with less than 31 Republican votes,” said Rep. Russell Pearce, R-18. He said the House will not approve a budget with fewer than 31 Republican votes. I hope we have more than that.

There are 38 Republicans in the House, including eight who voted last year against the current fiscal 2005 budget.

“If it’s a responsible budget, I think we can get the votes,” said Rep. Bill Konopnicki, R-5, one of the Republicans who voted against the ’05 budget. “If it’s a draconian budget, where we’re cutting everything back and we’re literally stifling the growth of the state, I think it’s going to be very difficult to get the budget out.”

Senate Appropriations Committee member Sen. Robert Cannell, D-24, went as far to say he doesn’t think a Republican-backed budget could get out of the Senate, but if Republicans in both houses win out on their spending package, “It’s headed for an eventual veto.”

Mr. Cannell said the appropriations committee process is not leading to a bipartisan budget.

“They’re listening to us, but we don’t have the votes,” he said. “It’s not going to get a budget out of here with any Democrat votes on it. It might be hard to get it out of here because I expect there’ll be a few ‘no’ votes as usual out of the Republican caucus.”

House Democratic Leader Phil Lopes said Democrats “have not been shoved out, but have not been invited in” to budget talks with Republican leaders, who have been formulating a budget in closed meetings.

“I’d like to have an opportunity where we can get together on a somewhat equitable basis and see if we can work out some deals,” he said. Everybody is assuming that if we get together, somebody’s going to have to lose. I’m saying, why don’t we try to get together and see if we can have win-win, and not just win-lose.”

Mr. Lopes, D-27, was asked if it will take budget vetoes by the governor to get Democrats and Republicans to the table? “I don’t want to say it will take that, but everybody knows it’s there as a factor we need to assess,” he said.

Mr. Pearce, a House Appropriations Committee chairman, said, “I want to send up a budget she’ll sign, but I don’t want to send up a budget that’s easy for her to sign. She’s a spender; we’re not. So, if I send up a budget that’s comfortable for her to sign, I’ve not done a good job. I want her to have white knuckles when she signs this budget, I want her to grimace over the fact that she’s going to sign this budget because it’s not going to spend the money she wants to spend. She may hate it, but she’ll sign it.”

Informal Vote Against Full-Day K

In a budget work session March 2, Mr. Burns’s committee fired a salvo at the Democrats and the governor with an informal vote against a $19 million increase for full-day kindergarten. Instead, the committee proposed an additional $20 million for all school districts.

“I feel all-day K is going to be a very important aspect of moving us forward,” said Rep. Tom O’Halleran, R-1, another Republican who voted against this year’s budget.

“If they can find 31 votes, they don’t have to come back to everybody” to negotiate, he said. “I would imagine that’s going to be one of their goals, to find the 31 votes within the caucus to do that. I’m hopeful the leadership will recognize there’s a need for debate on the issue and not try to force a budget through the process.”

Other budget issues in the forefront are a variety of proposed tax cuts and whether the Legislature feels compelled to appropriate funds to meet a federal court order to increase funding for programs to teach students the English language.

Ms. Napolitano has proposed a $7.9 billion budget, plus borrowing $300 million for school construction. Republicans are looking at $8.3 billion, including cash for school construction.

Democrats challenge what Republicans say is a structural deficit that must be eliminated to have a truly balanced budget. Mr. Cannell and Mr. Burns squared off on that issue in separate interviews with Arizona Capitol Times.

“We’re coming out from under the [revenue] problem,” Mr. Cannell said, “[but] we’ve injured all these agencies with deep cuts for three years. By this devised structural deficit, they’re limiting the ability to make these agencies whole.”

House Democrat Whip Pete Rios, D-23, said the Republican deficit is a “created figment of somebody’s imagination.”

Mr. Cannell said the state departments of Water Resources and Corrections and the judicial system have been hurt severely by restricted budgets. He summed up the budget process this way: “All we’ve got to do is pay for schools and trigger our rainy day fund like we did last year and we’re out of here.”

The current budget employs triggers — revenue that exceeds projections and therefore results in additional spending.

Deficit Looms

“Based on what I’ve been told by the number crunchers, we still have a deficit,” said Mr. Burns. He said he wasn’t sure where the deficit amount currently stands, but it is “significantly less” than the $460 million figure that was discussed earlier in the session.

“If we don’t control spending, we’re going to continue in a deficit,” Mr. Burns said. “To borrow money for construction of schools — all that does is it makes it cost more and passes the bill onto the kids we’re supposed to be looking out for. We’ve still got gimmicks in there we haven’t taken care of, and that’s not the way to handle people’s money.” He did not elaborate.

Mr. Pearce said he will oppose any move to use rainy day money for state programs.

“My bottom line is that we put out a balanced budget,” he said. “That may mean that we’re not able to fully fund [programs] – I will fight them to the death if they want to use any money that’s currently in that budget stabilization fund.”

Mr. Pearce, however, said there is room for negotiation on the rainy day fund if there are no excess funds to put into the account.

“If we’re not able to make that payment because that’s what it takes to put out a balanced budget, I’m willing to do that. But if I do that, I will insist that there are triggers… so that money goes back into there. I’m hoping this is the first time in four years I can vote for my own budget.” Mr. Pearce said has voted against the past three budgets.

The House’s Mr. Rios said paying cash for school construction is the best way to go, “but we don’t have it. Should we put money away for a rainy day? Absolutely, but right now there are a
lot of needs out there.”

Appropriations chairmen and leadership were scheduled to meet March 4 with staff from the Joint Legislative Budget Committee and economists to receive an update on state revenues.

Mr. Burns said Appropriations Committee chairmen will meet on their separate budget proposals and try to iron out differences at the committee level. The next steps would be committee votes, caucus discussions, then putting the budget in bill form. —