Senate leaders worked overtime to persuade enough Republicans to finally pass a plan that is intended to close a $3-billion deficit in next year’s budget.
Republican lawmakers approved the budget package just before daybreak on June 4, but the actual floor debate, which began about 3 a.m., was over relatively quickly.
The debate lasted for only less than an hour because only one Democratic senator stuck around. The rest of the minority caucus had left at midnight after several hours of waiting for the Republicans to get their act together.
All 10 budget bills in the package passed by votes of 16-to-1. Sen. Meg Burton Cahill, a Democrat from Tempe, cast the only votes against the measures.
Republicans Sen. Carolyn Allen of Scottsdale and Sen. Jay Tibshraeny of Chandler, were absent from the floor.  
Earlier in the day, Allen had told the Arizona Capitol Times she was a “no” on the budget. Tibshraeny’s absence indicates he probably wouldn’t have voted for it either.
But the Legislature’s work is far from over.
Gov. Jan Brewer has indicated that she would reject a budget from the Legislature if did not make changes to accommodate her budget plan, which she released on June 2. Her budget includes a temporary one-cent sales tax increase, a deal-breaker for many Republicans.
The Senate, however, plugged stimulus money into its budget package to correspond with Brewer’s application to the federal government. In fact, the Legislature has to accept how Brewer wants to use the stimulus funds because the federal government placed control of the funds in the hands of state governors.
Even if Brewer signs the budget bills, Senate President Bob Burns said lawmakers might have to go into special session to adjust the fiscal 2010 budget just as they re-adjusted the fiscal 2009 budget several times after originally passing it last June.
The plan is to approve the budget in the Senate and the House, but then hold off on sending it to the Governor’s Office until legislative leaders have had the chance to talk to Brewer, Burns said.
“We would hope that she would be able to sign this or we could possibly negotiate some minor changes because I don’t think we can deviate too far from what we have got or we lose votes,” Burns said.
Senators passed their budget because they need it as a leverage to negotiate with Brewer, Burns added. “I think we need to show that we have got the votes and that we can put a bill on her desk,” he said.
Burns said he would consider holding a special session to pass a final budget product resulting from negotiations with Brewer. The special session bills would essentially contain the same language as the budget measures passed on June 4 with changes to reflect the agreement with Brewer.
Burns said he wants to discuss with Brewer how to go about implementing her five-point plan, but first they must get the fiscal 2010 budget taken care of and out of the way.
“I think we need to get this 2010 proposal behind us. It is like a monkey on our back,” Burns said. “We can’t get anything else done.”
The budget package, which the Senate Appropriations Committee approved in late May, was amended heavily on the floor, shedding several of its more controversial components.
The extent of the changes adopted was perhaps best illustrated by the fact that one of the amendments took up103 pages.
That amendment deals with the K-12 education portion of the budget plan.
The same amendment removed a provision in the budget approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee that would have directed school districts to remove union representatives from their payroll.
In broad strokes, the Senate’s latest budget contained about $631 million in cuts and $347 million in fund sweeps and transfers to the general fund. It used more than $1.2 billion in federal stimulus money, which included Medicaid and stabilization funds.
The budget also calls for revenue-enhancing measures, such as privatization and lease-purchase of state prisons, which are expected to generate about $600 million in state revenue.
When compared to the budget approved at the committee level, the floor version contained fewer cuts, a smaller payment-deferral amount, a smaller fund-transfer amount and more stimulus money.
There were a host of other changes to the floor version. One was to reduce the amount of vehicle license tax revenue given to school districts to $95 million from $190 million. Several Republicans had balked at the original intention to take away $190 million in VLT collections from local governments.
The changes include:
• Appropriating an additional $170 million to cover caseload growth in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System.
• Restoring non-Title 19 SMI (seriously mentally ill) funding to the Department of Health Services in the amount of $76 million.
• Restoring $40 out of $90 million in universities’ auxiliary funds that was swept in the budget passed out of committee level.
• Adding a footnote that instructs AHCCCS, Department of Economic Security and Department of Health Services to take lump-sum reductions against administrative costs before program costs.
• Eliminating a requirement that counties pay for 100 percent of Arizona Long Term Care System growth after January 2011, and instead keeps the state-county cost sharing scheme of 50-50.
• Restoring lottery revenue to the Department of Economic Security for homeless shelters and services. The Appropriations Committee budget had suspended the transfer of lottery revenues to DES for homeless services.
• Restoring $159,400 in fund sweeps to the Arizona Department of Agriculture.
The new budget plan also removed several provisions related to universities that were in the committee-approved budget.
Lawmakers removed language that required all tuition revenue to be appropriated by the Legislature. They also removed a section that would have prohibited universities from requiring students to live on-campus or to purchase a meal plan.
Various items were removed following the adoption of several floor amendments. Among them was a provision that would have allowed a person to avoid defensive-driving school by paying a higher fine; critics said this provision smacked of elitism.
The budget legislation still would require — but as a session law rather than a permanent law — the Department of Economic Security to drug screen adults who receive cash benefits from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program if department officials find reasonable cause to believe they are using illegal drugs.
If a recipient of TANF money tests positive for illegal drugs, he or she becomes ineligible to receive the cash benefits. Legislative leaders have been advised that they are risking a legal challenge by including the provision.
Burton Cahill, the lone Democrat who stayed for the budget debate, said the Senate is playing a game of chicken with the governor.
“The sad thing is, it’s the people of Arizona that are going to lose out in this game,” Burton Cahill said.
Sen. Sylvia Allen, a Republican from Snowflake, said there are many good things about the budget, even though it’s far from perfect.
“One is the fact that we have not burdened the people of Arizona with more taxes,” she said.
Both lawmakers’ views might have hit the mark.
The Legislature has looked in every nook for savings and additional revenue in order to avoid a tax increase.
By passing the budget, which included compromises from both the conservative and mainstream wings of the GOP caucus, the Legislature has sent the strongest signal yet to Brewer that it can craft a budget without resorting to a tax hike, even a temporary one.