Arizona Capitol Times Your Inside Source for Arizona Government, Politics and Business

Legislation enacting a major overhaul of the state's badly underfunded public safety worker pension plan was unanimously approved Wednesday by a Senate committee and will likely come to a vote Thursday by the full Senate.

The only agency in Arizona that requires leap year funding was allocated more than $900,000 to cover the costs of one extra calendar day.

A prominent Arizona historian is being enlisted to help advance the Arizona Capitol Museum.

A court showdown may be looming after a panel that oversees agency regulations ordered the Citizens Clean Elections Commission to repeal a set of rules regulating privately funded candidates and political committees.

A federal judge said Monday she was considering an agreement between Arizona and an inmate to end a claim of racial segregation in the state's 10 prisons.

A host of bills requiring schools to do more are moving through the legislative process.

A House committee passed a bill Monday to regulate sober living homes after hearing testimony from Prescott residents about problems the homes are creating in their communities.

In fiscal year 2015, about one-fourth of people who worked at the Department of Child Safety left their jobs. And most of them quit. Turnover at the beleaguered agency is one of the highest within state government at 24.5 percent.

Arizona's nearly 88,000 medical marijuana patients smoke, ate or otherwise consumed more than 19.2 tons of the drug last year.

Gov. Doug Ducey captured the attention of prisoner advocates when he revealed in the days before his Jan. 11 State of the State address that prison reform would be one of his legislative priorities in 2016.