Issue: budget
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Using money saved in part when the Arizona Corporation Commission got rid of an ethics attorney, the agency is now giving extra money to some commissioners to lead workshops on special issues.
And the idea of budgeting additional money for newly created committees, which the commission did not have before, led Commissioner Bob Burns to dissent from the commission’s budget request, a rare move meant to register his discontent with the program.
The committees were created by Chairman Tom Forese in March and doled out to Commissioners Andy Tobin, Boyd Dunn and Doug Little. Burns does not have a committee, and neither does Forese.
Each committee will get an additional $20,000 to spend on things like research, staffing or travel needs, said commission spokeswoman Holly Ward. The committees are considered a “pilot program” for budgeting purposes, and the amount will not exceed $100,000 for next fiscal year, she said.
There was also some money spent this year for the committees, she said, including an intern for Tobin’s water committee and some travel costs to go to rural areas, also for the water committee.
Little, however, told the Arizona Capitol Times he never held any meetings for his committee and didn’t spend any money it.
Burns said in his dissent letter, attached to the budget request sent to the Ducey administration, that this is the first time in his five years as a commissioner that he has dissented from a budget request.
Agencies send requests for spending to the Governor’s Office each fall, jockeying for limited available funds. Burns wrote that the funding for the committees is coming from “vacancy savings,” meaning money the commission hasn’t spent to fill vacant positions.
One of those positions left vacant, resulting in savings, is a legal counsel hired in 2015 to handle ethics issues and public records requests, Ward said. When the commission hired a new legal counsel, Andy Kvesic, he streamlined his team and is now doing records requests himself, so the position is no longer needed, Ward said.
But Burns believes these new committees don’t need additional money, and the money in question should go toward its intended purpose, paying for salaries. Burns notes in his dissent that his office coordinated seven workshops with more than 70 presenters a couple years ago without any additional funding.
“The perception is that this $100,000 will go to commissioners who support Chairman Forese’s agenda,” Burns alleges, adding that the commissioners who have committees are the ones who now routinely vote with Forese.
“It creates an appearance of a carrot and a stick model that can be used as leverage against members of the commission who ‘fall out of line’ with the commission chairman,” Burns wrote.
Burns also questioned the existence of the committees in general, saying they make the commission more like the Legislature, which “is a deviation from the Arizona Constitution.” The commission is supposed to be a fourth branch of government unlike the other three, and the committees centralize power in the chairman’s hands, Burns wrote.
Burns told the Arizona Capitol Times he dissented from the budget request because he didn’t know what other route he could take to say he disagreed with the committee spending.
“This whole thing of setting up committees is a farce, in my opinion,” Burns said.
Forese and Tobin want to make the commission more like the Legislature, and the committees serve that purpose, Burns said, adding that they’re being used similarly to the way the Legislature uses committee placements to gain leverage or punish people. He equated the committee system to a “chairman’s slush fund.”
“Guess who doesn’t have one?” Burns said.
Forese knocked down Burns’ claims that the committees centralize power, saying instead they are intended to give commissioners a way to go deeper into issues and become experts. Forese said there are a number of positions that won’t be filled at the commission, and the commission is looking for other ways to adopt “lean measures” the Ducey administration has prioritized.
And while it’s true that Burns doesn’t have a committee, Forese said he’s open to giving him one.
“He’s never asked me for one. We’ve never discussed it,” Forese said.
As far as making the commission more like the Legislature, Forese said that’s the whole point of the committees. He found the legislative committee process better for public interaction and deep discussion. In the past, commission chairmen have used their positions to dominate on key issues, and Forese wants to instead defer to other commissioners to lead on specific topics.
The budget request dissent falls into a pattern of disagreement between Forese and Burns, who have repeatedly clashed over Burns’ interest in disclosing election spending on Forese and Little’s 2014 race.
“If I signed a birthday card, Bob Burns would dissent,” Forese said.
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The Breakdown, Episode 12: What do you want, and when do you want it?
The Breakdown, Episode 13: Good – not great – times at the Capitol
The Breakdown, Episode 14: Enough is enough?
The Breakdown, Episode 15: The teachers have spoken
The Breakdown, Episode 17: That’s a wrap
The Breakdown: All eyes on the budget
The Breakdown: Call ’em as you see ’em
The Breakdown: Have you no honor?
The Breakdown: Love letters and budget
The Breakdown: Our watch has ended
The Breakdown: Rumor has it
The Breakdown: Where there’s smoke…
The Breakdown: Wrap it up already
Top Republicans meet to work out deal on teacher pay
Top Republicans are huddling to see if they can reach an accord over the issue of teacher pay ahead of Thursday’s strike deadline, potentially forestalling or at least undermining the walkout.
Senate President Steve Yarbrough told Capitol Media Services Monday there is “unease” among many House and Senate Republicans with predictions by Gov. Doug Ducey that a 19 percent pay hike for teachers by 2020 can be enacted and money from a special assistance fund for schools can be restored, all without a tax hike. Ducey contends that there will be sufficient strong economic growth to both generate new tax revenues and reduce state spending on health and social service programs.
He said that’s why some GOP lawmakers are holding out until they can identify firm sources of revenue “to help us get to this very ambitious goal.”
But whether anything that lawmakers approve is enough to avert a walkout remains to be seen.
The teacher pay plan, even if approved, does not address other demands by Arizona Educators United and the Arizona Education Association. That includes pay hikes for support staff like teaching specialists, counselors, bus drivers and cafeteria workers.
And nothing in the governor’s proposal specifically addresses restoring the more than $1 billion that has been taken in state aid to schools in the last decade, as well as a demand to eventually get teacher pay here up to the national average.
“We are very cognizant of a wide variety of wishes,” Yarbrough said.
“But we’re trying to get the really big nut cracked at the moment,” he said, that being teacher pay.
At this point, House Speaker J.D. Mesnard said lawmakers will do what they do — and the education groups will do what they want, no matter what. And if that means a teacher strike, he said, that can’t be the prime concern of legislators.
“Few people down here are looking at Thursday as any kind of deadline,” Mesnard told Capitol Media Services.
“The belief here is that Thursday’s going to happen, no matter what,” he said. And he said that pretty much whatever legislators approve “will not be enough in the eyes of some.”
Mesnard, however, suggested he thinks there may be some cracks developing in the #RedForEd movement, particularly now that Ducey has put a plan for teacher pay on the table.
“I think this movement was founded specifically on teacher pay,” he said, echoing Yarbrough’s belief that has to be the focus of legislative action. “And now some are trying to move the goalposts a bit.”
But AEA President Joe Thomas said education groups have been clear from the start that this has always been about the larger issue of adequate school funding, of which teacher pay is just a part.
And Thomas said if Ducey and GOP leaders think they’ve got a plan to at least start addressing the issue, they need to communicate that to the AEA and AEU if they truly want to avoid a strike. But to date, the governor has steadfastly refused to meet with Thomas or Noah Karvelis, one of the AEU organizers.
Scarpinato declined to speculate whether approval of a teacher pay plan would forestall a strike.
Thomas said people are willing to listen if there’s a real proposal.
“Educators look at new data,” he said.
But to this point, Thomas said, there’s little to convince them that Ducey’s plan is financially sustainable.
Even the governor himself is not relying entirely on an improving economy. His plan involves decisions not to fund certain other priorities like additional dollars for skilled nursing care, a border crimes unit and even reducing the debt.
And it even counts on generating cash through a new state-run keno game.
For educators, however, the offer to hike teacher pay is not enough because there are no dollars specifically to improve pay for support staff like counselors, classroom specialists, janitors and bus drivers.
Ducey, for his part, said restoring funds for additional district assistance — the money lawmakers refused to fund in prior years — will free up cash for those employees. But those dollars are supposed to go to things like computers, books, buses and some repairs, all things that have not been fully funded in years, resulting in some cases in out-of-date books that finally could get replaced and repairs being made that have gone ignored.
The education groups also want some plan to not only get student funding back to where it was a decade ago — it is less than that now, even before inflation is taken into account — but also to get teacher pay up to the national average.
Expect More Arizona, a group that lobbies for more education funding, says the current median for all teachers in the state is $44,900. That, the organization says, ranks Arizona No. 49 with a national median of $57,160.
The movement is picking up support from other quarters.
Julie Erfle, spokeswoman for AZ Schools Now, said her education support group supports not only the movement but understands why educators have chosen to walk out.
“A decade of severe budget cuts have left our classrooms in disrepair, our teachers demoralized, and our students shortchanged,” she said in a prepared statement Monday, calling on Ducey and legislative leaders to find “sustainable, permanent and equitable solutions” for schools.
“Anything less is unacceptable,” Erfle said.
The last-minute push to find a deal — and possibly avert a strike — comes on the heels of Ducey striking out at legislative inaction on Friday by vetoing 10 of their bills.
“There’s no doubt that there’s some pretty strong feelings in the caucus about the vetoed bills,” Mesnard said. “So there’s a lot of conversation happening among caucus members.”
House Majority Leader John Allen, R-Scottsdale, called the governor’s actions “politics over policy.”
But the move appears to have had the desired results, paving the way for the negotiations — at least among Ducey and legislators.
“The governor feels very strongly that we need to get this teacher pay proposal over the finish line,” said Ducey press aide Daniel Scarpinato.
He said school districts are currently putting together their budgets and offering contracts to teachers for the coming year.
“So there is some real urgency in getting it done,” Scarpinato said. And with talks now underway, Ducey has apparently relented: On Monday he signed three Republican bills.