Gov. Jan Brewer listens to comments from prisons Director Charles Ryan as part of a day-long forum in which the governor heard people testify how they’d be hurt by the GOP-backed legislative budget proposal. (Photo by Bill Coates)

Lawmakers said they wanted more time to negotiate with the governor when they declined to send their budget package to Jan Brewer's desk. Those negotiations continue, but Brewer is using the extra time to take aim at the myriad provisions of that budget that she considers unacceptable.

Brewer ramped up her offensive against lawmakers and the budget they passed last week with a daylong forum June 9 that included testimony from educators, health care providers, law enforcement officials and municipal officials. More than two-dozen people, many of whom voiced their support for Brewer's budget plan and the controversial 1-cent sales tax increase it includes, testified about the negative impacts they believe the Legislature's budget will have if signed by the governor.

The governor, who released her budget proposal on June 1, said the forum was an opportunity for stakeholders in the budget process to inform the public about the consequences of the legislative budget package, many of which she said have not been openly discussed in public.

"(The legislative budget process) has been somewhat not transparent, and I think this is the opportunity that we can have it out in the open. And hopefully we all will find and learn things that we're concerned about and then come up with solutions," Brewer said.

Representatives of Arizona's K-12 education community testified that the legislative budget plan does not meet funding increase standards established by Proposition 301, while university officials criticized increased cuts to higher education spending, especially a $50 million sweep of auxiliary funds from the three universities that they say would jeopardize nearly $900 million in federal stimulus money for education.

Health care agency officials and advocates testified that the millions of dollars in cuts to the state's health care infrastructure would endanger the health of low-income residents and create a public safety risk. They also warned that legislative cuts to the KidsCare programs, nursing homes and hospital reimbursement rates will land more people in the emergency room and raise the cost of private health insurance.

City and county officials testified about portions of the budget that call for the state to strip millions in impact fees, vehicle license tax revenue and property taxes from local governments. Ken Strobeck, executive director of the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, said lawmakers' claims that their budget does not include a tax increase is untrue because it shifts a heavy financial burden to the cities, which in turn may be forced to raise municipal taxes.

After the forum, Brewer lashed out at lawmakers for crafting a budget that she believes isn't balanced, eliminates too many critical services and possibly jeopardizes federal funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. She also criticized lawmakers' refusal to send their budget to her desk, where it is widely expected to be met with a veto, and urged them to support her tax hike proposal, which has faced heavy opposition from conservative lawmakers.

"I think … it's absurd that they would pass a budget in the manner that they did, and then they want to negotiate afterward," she said. "It takes 16, 31 and one. They're negotiating with me, and it's obvious … that they were going to give me two days to cool off, so obviously they knew what they had done was very different from what normal protocol would call for."

Legislative leaders said they are holding the bill while they negotiate with Brewer, but those negotiations did not appear to be bearing much fruit early on. When asked whether she and legislators were able to reach any agreements in their first day of negotiations on June 8, she responded tersely, "No."

She said the Legislature is assuming a budget deficit of just $3 billion, while her budget addresses a $4 billion gap. The only way to bridge that deficit, she said, is with revenue from the temporary 1-cent sales tax increase she proposed in her budget.

"Obviously, if the Legislature doesn't have the will to address increased revenues, then I encourage them to send it out to the public and let the taxpayers decide. It won't be the first time they did it. We need additional revenue to balance the budget to turn the state around," Brewer said. "There's no two, three ways about it. Figures don't lie. Do the math."

Republican lawmakers who attended the forum had no shortage of criticism either. Sen. Jack Harper, a Republican from Surprise, referred to the day of hearings as a "kangaroo court" filled exclusively with supporters of Brewer's budget.

"We've got an entire panel of people at the public trough that are spinning their position," Harper said after listening to testimony about education infrastructure funding. "I consider this first panel – not necessarily the governor or her staff, but this first panel of people testifying – to be a kangaroo court."

Rep. John Kavanagh, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said neither the Legislature nor the public wants a tax increase, and urged Brewer to negotiate with House Speaker Kirk Adams and Senate President Bob Burns.

"I'm hoping that the governor sits down with the Senate president and the speaker, and works out a good, solid, Republican budget that has no tax increase so that we can move forward," the Fountain Hills Republican said.

Sen. Ron Gould questioned Brewer's Republican credentials and asked why members of the public were not permitted to testify.

"She's decided to slay her friends to appease her enemies. We're Republicans and she's supposed to be a conservative, but she's set up a panel of essentially tax-spenders to come in and whine and cry about how the legislative budget is going to cut their budget. I can assemble 10,000 taxpayers to show up and testify how they think it would be great that we hold the line on taxes," said Gould, a Lake Havasu Republican.

While Brewer took heavy flak from members of her own party, she found no respite on the other side of the aisle either. In a press release, the Arizona Democratic Party called the forum a media stunt with a "clearly scripted parade of political allies," and criticized her for waiting until the beginning of June to release a budget proposal. The party said Brewer's budget proposal raises taxes on the middle class and fails to protect Arizona's schools.

"Gov. Brewer needs to work on the budget, not on her camera angles. Today's media sideshow was just that," party Chairman Don Bivens stated in the press release. "The job of the governor is to lead, to protect Arizona's future by protecting Arizona's schools, Arizona's jobs and Arizona's middle class. Gov. Brewer needs to get serious about doing the job of a governor."

Attorney General Terry Goddard, was a little kinder to Brewer than either party, though his support for her budget was far from unqualified. Goddard, who was not on the witness list but was given an opportunity to testify, said public safety has taken a higher percentage hit than any other part of the budget, and pointed to the 29-percent cut the legislative budget made to the Department of Public Safety,
along with the 11.4-percent cut in his own office and 4-percent cut to the Department of Corrections.

"Your budget, I would hasten to say, is better, but it still does very serious damage to much of our public safety infrastructure," Goddard said.