Lawmakers on the Joint Legislative Budget Committee approved a $16 million funding transfer within the Department of Child Safety on Thursday after Republicans sounded the alarm that funding for foster group homes would run out on March 24.

The final approval came amidst growing partisan frustration with Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs over state spending.

That meant Republicans and Democrats on the committee spent most of the meeting arguing over who was responsible for DCS’s funding issue after feuding erupted earlier in the week prompting a press event and ad hoc committee by the GOP on March 17 to address Hobbs’ management of the executive budget.

House Appropriations Chairman David Livingston, R-Peoria, said he received a letter from DCS on March 11 informing him that the department needed a line item transfer by March 24. The letter, dated March 5, was delayed in getting to Livingston because it was sent to the nonpartisan Joint Legislative Budget Committee staff rather than Livingston’s House office.

“This financial mismanagement threatens the most vulnerable children in our state and House Republicans will not let this stand,” said Speaker Steve Montenegro, R-Goodyear. “Once again, we are being told that we have to clean up Governor Hobbs’ mess.”

DCS initially proposed pulling $6.5 million from kinship care services and foster home placements to cover the shortfall in its letter, but Livingston said he was concerned that wouldn’t be enough to cover the rest of the fiscal year.

“The agency has already spent its fourth quarter allotment even though we’re in the fourth quarter,” said House Majority Leader Michael Carbone, R-Buckeye. “They tell us that even if we move funds for DCS today, congregate care will still go broke in April. Perhaps one of these problems alone would be excusable, but we’re seeing a pattern of financial malfeasance.”

When Livingston said he asked DCS to re-examine funding sources the department could pull from and to make sure the supplemental request would cover the rest of the fiscal year, the department came back with a proposal of transferring another $10 million from adoption services, out-of-home support services and in-home mitigation to cover the shortfall through June 30.

The request also includes a $2.2 million transfer to extended foster care from adoption services. JLBC approved the total transfer of $16.5 million during its March 20 meeting.

Hobbs’ spokesman Christian Slater said in a written response March 17 that the DCS funding request is a standard budget procedure that Republicans have known about since department staff attended a Jan. 29 House Appropriations Committee to discuss the state of the agency.

“The majority should do their jobs and pay attention in committee hearings rather than weaponize routine budgeting processes to hold Arizonans hostage for their own political gain,” Slater said.

Richard Stavneak, the director of JLBC’s staff, said while JLBC knew about DCS’ funding issue, his staff could not have known when exactly the department would run out of money.

“There are any number of different funding sources that exist with any large department so I think my perspective is, yes, there was going to be a problem,” Stavneak said. “Would it occur on March 24? That is something that only the agency is sufficient to be able to make that call.”

Republicans say their frustration stems from the executive branch’s management of the budget as a whole and what they view as miscommunication from the governor’s office and DCS. Livingston said he felt that the letter that DCS sent on March 5 was “unprofessional” and “politicized” when it mentioned that children would be removed from group home placements and likely be forced to sleep in DCS offices or runaway as a result of inaction.

“It is normal when (JLBC) meets and we do line item transfers,” Livingston said. “If (DCS) would have asked for these monies to be transferred in our December meeting, that would have been a normal process.”

Alex Ong, the deputy director of administration for DCS, said during the JLBC’s meeting that DCS knew about the shortfall that congregate care services would face since the current year’s budget was signed last legislative session, but waited until March to ask for the appropriations transfer to see how the department’s expenditures were shaping.

Ong said while the department didn’t make the specific request for a line item transfer in January, he felt the department had made the legislature aware that it would need a supplemental well before the March 5 letter was sent.

Although the legislature has addressed DCS’s funding issues, the governor’s office has been critical of Republicans choosing not to vote on a $122 million supplemental funding bill that would provide emergency funding for Arizonans with developmental disabilities.

House Democrats on March 18 attempted to bypass procedural rules and bring forward the supplemental bill that would provide supplemental funding to keep these services running, but Republican lawmakers and the governor’s office came to a standstill over how to resolve a budget crisis rapidly becoming political.

“The governor has made promises to them that she can’t keep. She hasn’t appropriated the money to pay them what she says she will pay them and then we’re left cleaning it up and being the adults in the room,” Livingston said.

House Republicans rejected the offer from Democrats to vote on HB2816 — the supplemental funding bill. Livingston said after Tuesday’s floor session that Republicans were unwilling to pass a supplemental funding bill on its own without “substantial” adjustment on disability policies. He said the governor’s office hasn’t been willing to discuss those policy adjustment ideas.

“It makes it very difficult to pass a supplemental when they won’t meet with us to talk about what we need in that, besides the money,” Livingston said. “There’s no way in hell that we’re passing a supplemental with just the money and no reforms because the mismanagement caused it.”

Slater said that Republicans have proposed cutting 25% to 50% of the DDD’s budget.

He also accused Republicans of not being willing to negotiate and lying about the budget process.

Line item budget transfers have historically been a common occurrence from various state departments during JLBC meetings; DCS itself has approved over 20 since September 2016 when former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey was in office. That fact was not missed by House Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos, D-Laveen, who said that Republicans are only now speaking about it because a Democrat occupies the Ninth Floor.

“Now, suddenly, when it’s not (Empowerment Scholarship Accounts) asking for a supplemental request, and its children with disabilities asking for a supplemental request, suddenly it’s a problem. Outrageous,” De Los Santos said. “Stop the games. Pass the supplemental.”

In a March 5 letter to Livingston and Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, Hobbs’ office informed the appropriations chairmen that the ESA program would need a $44.8 million supplemental to cover increased costs in the 2025 budget.

Both Livingston and House Assistant Minority Leader Nancy Gutierrez, D-Tucson, told the Arizona Capitol Times they’re confident DDD’s funding issue can be resolved by the end of April, but Republicans and the governor’s office have called on one another to step up to the negotiating table.