None of the major issues facing state government this year is new.

The General Fund budget — whether the state is broke or flush — is something to quarrel over every year. Such is the case, as well, with how the state is dealing with child abuse and neglect.

Illegal immigration, a long-standing problem, has only gained the rapt attention of Arizona politicians in the past several years, and that issue will not only be the subject of more legislation this year but a major issue dividing Republicans and Democrats on the campaign trail.

While the race for governor — itself a partisan issue in the mix of legislative strategies —or eminent domain do not touch the lives of all Arizonans, water and health care do.

As analyzed by Arizona Capitol Times, what follows is an examination of the top 10 issues for state government in 2006, including the players at and outside the Capitol and what to expect.

The issues (in alphabetical order) for 2006 legislative session:

Budget

Water

Budget

The issue:

The state’s coffers are overflowing as the housing market continues to drive Arizona’s economic engine. Republican leadership estimates the total surplus the Legislature will have to work with when creating the 2007 budget will be as much as $850 million, though that is likely a conservative figure.

In a speech earlier this month, House Speaker Jim Weiers said Republicans aim to eliminate the “budgeting gimmicks” that were used to balance the state’s ledger in leaner times at a price tag of up to $500 million.

Additional spending on immigration issues may cost upwards of $100 million, and Mr. Weiers said to expect an additional $250 million for K-12 education. He also said the state would look to reduce taxes, provide vouchers for private school and give state employees a pay raise that would be the largest in a generation.

Main players:

The Republican majorities in the House and Senate will rule budget discussions, and leadership has once again announced a budget will only pass if it is able to secure the votes of 16 Republicans in the Senate and 31 Republicans in the House. Democrats, however, will only be shut out of the process until the bills reach Governor Napolitano. They will voice their opposition to some of the budget priorities set by the majority, chief among them tax cuts, immigration and school vouchers. Democrats also will advocate for additional funds for English language education programs, full-day kindergarten and higher raises for the state employees than the Republicans are suggesting.

What’s expected:

Ms. Napolitano vetoed a record 58 bills last session, bolstered by her veto of the first batch of budget bills she received. If the two sides don’t work out their philosophical disagreements prior to the Republicans crafting their own budget and beginning the appropriations process — tentatively scheduled to begin in late February — another veto of an entire budget is not out of the question.

In the end, compromises will have to be made, and it is likely the Republicans will succeed in eliminating the accounting loopholes currently used to balance the budget, while Democrats will probably win additional funding to expand full-day kindergarten.

Child Protective Services

The issues:

Future of Child Protective Services; five-year renewal for the Department of Economic Security.

After years of increasing child neglect, abuse and deaths and resultant criticism of CPS, Governor Napolitano proposed sweeping reforms for the agency, a division of DES.

The Legislature adopted the reforms and increased CPS’s funding in a lengthy special session that ended just before Christmas, 2003.

The governor says the agency, which remains a whipping boy for some Republican lawmakers, has made good progress, and she defends the performance of DES Director David Berns.

After a series of hearings this past summer, however, an interim committee controlled by CPS critics recommended a five-year extension for DES. Under state sunset law, agencies are usually given 10-year renewals.

State auditors cast a critical eye on CPS in December, concluding that some reports of alleged abuse and neglect weren’t investigated as required and that the agency’s own records of its investigations of other cases lack important information needed to ensure children’s safety.

The five-year DES sunset will go to the Legislature in bill form, and extensive debate is anticipated, fueled by the critical audit and possible legislation that would separate CPS from DES.

Main players:

Speaker Jim Weiers, Rep. Laura Knaperek and Sen. Karen Johnson are seeking further CPS reforms, including improved reporting of child abuse and deaths.

What’s expected:

Close call in both houses on a five-year sunset for DES. Moderates could force a compromise for six to eight years or stand firm with Democrats for 10 years. Any legislation to make CPS a separate agency won’t have much of a chance. Moderate Republicans and most Democrats will likely side with the governor’s position on further CPS reforms, and Children’s Action Alliance will lobby for whatever it believes is best for children at risk.

Corrections

The issue:

The Department of Corrections essentially is serving as the top academy for corrections officers in the state: Many of the employees it hires and trains — at a cost of about $12,000 — are lured away to other prisons offering higher wages.

DOC salaries, according to the correction officers union, are about $8,000 below what is offered in Maricopa County jails and about $10,000 below what jails in Pima County pay. The low pay means officers leave to take other jobs, and state prisons face staffing shortages; DOC says there is currently a job vacancy rate of about 25 percent statewide.

Main players:

DOC Director Dora Schriro has been on the front lines advocating for an increased budget to provide higher salaries to officers as a recruitment and retention tool. She has said she wants the pay scale to be competitive with other counties.

Arizona Correctional Peace Officers Association President Tixoc Munoz will also push for more competitive wages.

Some lawmakers, mainly Republicans, don’t want to spend more money on Corrections, saying they believe private prisons are a more cost-effective way to incarcerate prisoners.

What’s expected:

Corrections officers received a pay raise of about $1,400 in the current budget, so it’s a very real possibility that the Legislature will continue to increase the salaries, though not at the rate department and union officials would like. A re-examination of staffing levels and the elimination of jobs that will never be filled may also be pushed by Rep. Russell Pearce, who says including those jobs in vacancy estimates skews reality.

Education

The issue:

A trio of topics will form the bulk of the education debate. First on the Legislature’s agenda will be passing a plan to fund English learning programs in public schools to be in compliance with a federal court order in the 1992 Flores v. Arizona lawsuit. A Republican plan vetoed last year will be tweaked to address some of the concerns Ms. Napolitano has with it and will be sent to her desk the first week of the session.

Next on the agenda is private school vouchers. Speaker Jim Weiers has said last year’s vetoed corporate tuition tax credit bill will be amended per the governor’s vet
o letter and will be returned to her. Finally, there is still a push to revamp the community college system and permit the schools to offer four-year baccalaureate degrees in a limited number of fields.

Main players:

House and Senate Republican leadership will take the lead on both the Flores and school voucher bills, both bills scheduled to be heard during the first week of session. Rep. Laura Knaperek has been spearheading the community college reform and held a series of public forums in the fall to meet with students, faculty and citizens across the state to discuss the reforms.

Democrats and some moderate Republicans are diametrically opposed to using tax money or private school education. Many of the same lawmakers are also hesitant to grant community colleges the power to give four-year degrees, as are the state universities, saying the level of education would be perceived as inferior, creating a second-tier diploma.

As for Flores, education advocates at the Legislature, such as Democrats Sen. Linda Aguirre and Rep. Linda Lopez, oppose the Republican plan because they say it won’t properly fund the programs. Tim Hogan, the attorney who brought the suit against the state, supports Ms. Napolitano’s funding plan, which nearly quadruples the per-student funding for ELL students by 2009, as opposed to the Republican plan that would fund schools on an individual basis, based on the pre-determined cost of the program.

What’s expected:

All that is known for sure is that Republicans will be successful in passing their Flores bill amended to satisfy the governor’s veto message last year; what she does with the bill once it is on her desk is anybody’s guess.

Corporate tuition tax credits could earn the governor’s signature, but only if Republicans aren’t insistent that it apply retroactively to the current budget.

The plan to expand the scope of community colleges will benefit from an entire session’s worth of debate and will gain more support than it did last year. But the proposal still faces an uphill climb.

Election Reform

The issue:

Perceptions among some of problems with integrity of the voting system.

“There is no such thing as a perfect election,” a veteran legislative aide observed recently.

The “hanging chads” in the 2000 presidential election, controversies over Diebold voting machines in the 2004 presidential election, yet another look at the 2004 District 20 House primary all serve as a backdrop to an unrest among some legislators and other public officials who want to further reform the election process.

Be they Clean Elections bills or legislation regarding mandatory recounts, “paper trails” to verify a voter’s choices or measures to comply with immigrant issues in Prop. 200, election reform measures are high on certain legislators’ agendas in 2006.

In the past two legislative sessions, 45 bills and seven resolutions dealing with changes in state and local election codes were introduced, but only two became law. An omnibus bill sponsored by Sen. Marilyn Jarrett and initiated by the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office died in the House last year, after Rep. Eddie Farnsworth, without explanation, blocked of all of Ms. Jarrett’s bills.

Main players:

Secretary of State Jan Brewer, Sens. Karen Johnson, Jack Harper and Jim Waring, Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell and Elections Director Karen Osborne.

What’s expected:

Given the on-going concern about the District 20 recount in 2004, chances are good Mrs. Brewer will be successful with some, if not all, of her recount and other election reform measures, save moving the state primary election to August.

With Mr. Waring carrying the omnibus election bill this year, chances of passage are good.

The fate of Rep. David Burnell Smith in his legal battle to stay in the Legislature after violating Clean Elections campaign finance law could well influence whether repeal of Clean Elections will have any momentum this year.

Election year politics

The issue:

The jobs don’t pay that much, especially for legislators, but the state’s elected officials usually seek re-election. One way or another, election year politics play a role in executive and legislative strategies.

Ms. Napolitano’s State of the State speech was viewed by Sen. Jake Flake and others as the kickoff of her Democratic re-election campaign. “She had something for everybody,” he said. The Republican Legislature has already begun its campaign against her by speedily moving several major bills that she vetoed last year in a budget flap, and there will be more “put-her-on-the-spot” legislation coming in the next three months.

At the same time, there are nearly a dozen outsiders who are hoping to qualify for the governor’s race, and most legislators are seeking re-election, aware that their constituents are checking on their voting records this year.

Rep. Nancy McLain, a Republican, is in the second year of her first term. “I certainly hope to be re-elected, but I don’t believe that I will change my opinions or philosophies in the hope of getting more votes,” she said.

A more veteran legislator had the following observations:

“I’m the old war horse,” said 12-year Republican legislator Sen. Carolyn Allen, “and I’ve seen Republicans run as fiscal conservatives, saying there’s too much legislation, and they introduce 60 bills. They are cautious about bills that could harm them. We shouldn’t be petrified that 15 of our constituents might disagree.”

Says Democrat Rep. Ted Downing, “As we used to say in Jenks, Okla., ‘The fox is just as likely as the rooster to count the hens.’”

Main players:

Governor Napolitano and legislators running for re-election.

What’s expected:

A rerun of the 2005 duel between Ms. Napolitano and Republican leadership, stretching the session to more than four months; the governor’s re-election and little change in the partisan balance of the Legislature.

Health Care

The issues:

An estimated 1 million Arizonans without health insurance; increasing AHCCCS costs.

In her State of the State address, Governor Napolitano said 250,000 of the uninsured are employees of small business, and she proposed a tax credit for every business with fewer than 25 employees that provides health insurance to their workers.

To match the employer credit, Ms. Napolitano has proposed a health care premium subsidy for low-income workers to help them pay their share of health premiums.

House Democratic Leader Phil Lopes says private market innovations have failed to slow the rise of health care costs, and he’s working on legislation that would create a public, employer-funded health care system for all residents who have lived in Arizona for more than a year.

Meanwhile, Rep. Russell Pearce says he wants to reduce the state’s health care spending, in part by eliminating some low-cost insurance benefits for the working poor and significantly increasing co-pays for AHCCCS recipients. Mr. Pearce says he also would like to overturn Prop. 204, which liberalized AHCCCS eligibility requirements, bringing many more people into the state Medicaid program. Under the Voter Protection Act of 1998, a three-fourths vote of the Legislature is required to overturn a ballot initiative.

Main players:

Governor Napolitano, Sens. Carolyn Allen and Robert Cannell, Reps. Phil Lopes, Russell Pearce and Doug Quelland.

What’s expected:

Because she views the number of working people who do not have health insurance as a “crisis,” Ms.
Napolitano is not apt to budge or negotiate away her health care initiatives, just as she stood firm last year on funding for the Phoenix medical school campus.

Democrats and moderate Republicans will not stand for any measure that would, in effect, kick low-income workers at certain poverty levels and their families off AHCCCS or eliminate or reduce some of their benefits.

Sen. Richard Miranda says he will introduce what in the past was labeled a Wal-Mart” bill, requiring large employers who have workers on AHCCCS to reimburse the state for their benefit. Another AHCCCS measure would insure certain part-time workers.

And for kickers, there will be some interesting debate on Sen. Harper’s bill to prohibit AHCCCS coverage on prescription drugs for erectile dysfunction.

Illegal Immigration

The issues:

Concerns over illegal immigration and how and where to address the problem cut across partisan and ethnic lines. Illegal immigration indisputably is a serious human safety issue. Hundreds of illegal border crossers have died in recent years in the Arizona desert and more than a few have died from the careless treatment of “coyotes,” those who traffic in people looking for work in the United States. The border-crossers also inflict considerable damage on private and public land. Beyond that, common ground is difficult to find.

Business-friendly Republicans are divided whether accommodations should be made for workers filling numerous jobs that employers say Americans won’t take, such as harvesting crops, and working in relatively low-paying jobs in the hospitality and other service industries. Some Republicans side with business and agriculture interests, while others say illegal immigration flouts the law ands add millions of dollars to the cost of public health care and education. Some worry the more recent immigrants have no desire to assimilate, while others say that argument is a racist smokescreen.

Crafting a funding system for English language learners in Arizona public schools that will satisfy a federal court order has many facets. It’s not just a funding issue of “How much is enough” or how much federal courts should impose on a state’s public education, although those are certainly significant. Funding ELLs under the Flores ruling also, at bottom, may be a cultural issue that runs through the larger issue of immigration, as many of the English language learners are believed to be the children of illegal immigrants.

Main players:

Rep. Russell Pearce has been the point man in the Legislature for supporters of Prop. 200, a voter-approved initiative that requires recipients of some state benefits and new voters to prove their citizenship. The wild card in making or breaking many immigration-related bills will be Governor Napolitano, who last session vetoed a raft of bills only to subsequently propose using the Arizona National Guard to help stem illegal crossings at the Mexican border. Ms. Napolitano’s fellow Democrats typically oppose stringent measures aimed at immigration, but Sen. Bill Brotherton, at least in principle, agrees that tougher sanctions need to be imposed on businesses that hire workers who aren’t legally qualified to work in the United States. Business and agricultural interests will be major players, but so will many minority-rights and civil-rights advocates and religious leaders.

What’s expected:

The majority Republicans seem happy with Ms. Napolitano’s proposal to spend up to $100 million of state money to help state and local law enforcement help secure the border. Sanctions against employers who hire — or exploit, depending on your point of view — illegal workers may have bipartisan support, but it remains to be seen whether that will turn into a majority of the votes in each chamber in the face of lobbying from business and agriculture.

Municipal Tax Incentives/ Revenue Sharing

The issues:

For years there has been fierce competition among growing municipalities to attract large chain store outlets, shopping and auto malls and other developments with tax incentives as a way to increase their own tax bases and make their cities and towns better places to live. Those bidding wars drew the attention of the Legislature, which last year kicked around some bills limiting or prohibiting tax rebates as a lure to locate, passing one that requires that a tax incentive would result in more revenue than the amount of the incentive, and that the business would not otherwise locate in the city without the tax break. It’s reported that two legislators who oppose such incentives altogether are working on bills to prohibit them.

The municipal tax breaks, usually in the form of sales tax rebates, are the main reason Republican Sen. Bob Burns last year tried to phase out revenue sharing with the nine largest cities. He says if they can afford to fund hotels and large sports complexes, they can eventually do without state shared revenue. Mr. Burns says he will be back this year with a similar bill calling for an eight-year phase out instead of five years.

“We’re giving them a little breathing room,” he said.

Main players:

Sen. Burns and other conservative Republicans, mayors of the nine largest cities, Arizona League of Cities and Towns, chamber of commerce, Democrat Sen. Ken Cheuvront and Ms. Napolitano.

What’s expected:

Mr. Tibshraeny’s compromise bill last year, signed by the governor, will probably rule the day against attempts to totally ban municipal tax incentives. The league and other lobbying forces will be enough to kill any ban against the sales tax breaks and certainly will defeat a phase out of revenue sharing, which provides municipalities with funds for public safety and other critical services.

Water/Drought & Forests

The issues:

While Arizona has taken numerous steps over the past quarter century to move water from one place to another to slake the demands of a growing population, the ultimate source of that water is the sky. Arizona has seen lower-than-average rainfall in eight of the past 10 years, and 2006 isn’t expected to be much different, forecasters are predicting. The University of Arizona’s recently released Climate Assessment puts it succinctly: “Drought conditions are expected to intensify throughout most of the Southwest.” Even if that prediction comes true, there’s no immediate threat to drinking-water supplies. But it doesn’t bode well for fire prevention across Arizona’s forests as the fire season threatens to come up sooner and last even longer this year because of the persistent drought conditions. Forestry experts and business owners in December asked a legislative committee to take some steps. Among the concerns, ironically, is the spread of Ponderosa pine. The trees crowd out grasses, wildflowers and other flora critical to a diverse ecosystem, Wally Covington of the Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona University told the Joint Legislative Healthy Forest Task Force. Some interests in the so-called “biomass” energy field have proposed reducing the fire threat by thinning stands of trees and converting those cut trees into pellets that can be burned to fuel generation of electricity.

Main players:

Sen. Marilyn Jarrett and ex-Democrat Rep. Cheryl Chase co-chair the Joint Legislative Healthy Forest Task Force, and undoubtedly will be in the mix of any bills advanced in the GOP-controlled Legislature. Rep. Tom O’Halleran and Sen. Jake Flake also have been advocates of healthy forest measures in recent sessions. The governor has shown a willingness to invoke her veto authority, as in last session when she put the stamp to a bill to provide incentives to industry to harvest forest products. Ms. Napolitano said the measure would gi
ve incentives without any real prospect of promoting healthier forests or building the state’s economy.

What’s expected:

So far in the session, bills related to fire prevention and suppression in Arizona forests are about as rare as Dutch elms. Some variation on last year’s bill to thin forests and find some use for the trees is likely to return, as well as the debate over the sizes and ages of which trees to cut and how many should get cleared out. Beyond that, finding funds for the effort may be a concern, as few suggest that converting cut trees to fuel will entirely foot the bill. Action may not occur, though, until the first large forest fire breaks out.