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Brewer’s new plan: freeze AHCCCS without the cuts
Gov. Jan Brewer changed tracks on her plans to overhaul the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, announcing a new plan that would freeze enrollment for childless adults but wouldn’t impose the massive cuts she’d long advocated.
Bundgaard is out, Biggs is in
Sen. Andy Biggs, an eloquent speaker and conservative legislator from Gilbert, emerged as the new majority leader following a closed-door meeting this afternoon.
Senate budget plan deliberately ends FY11 in the red; Republicans call it transparent, honest
Instead of balancing the budget by borrowing money, deferring payment to schools or resorting to any other accounting maneuver, the Senate is proposing to cut spending as much it can, even if it means the current fiscal year ends with the state in the red.
Sources: Senate looking to pass budget this week
The Senate leadership is pushing to officially introduce and pass a budget proposal this week, multiple sources told the Arizona Capitol Times on Monday.
School unification committee gets broad support
When a slate of school district unification and consolidation ballot measures went down in flames in 2008, the movement appeared dead. But with Arizona reeling from deficit, advocates of unification are hoping that cost-conscious lawmakers will look at the proposal in a new light.
Brewer committed to small K-12 cuts
Some Republican lawmakers are predicting that they’ll have a budget on Gov. Jan Brewer’s desk by the time the 2011 session hits the 60-day mark, but first, someone will have to budge on K-12 spending and rollovers.
Health care groups unveil AHCCCS funding plan
Several health care industry groups that hope to stop the state from kicking a quarter of a million people out of the state's public health care system unveiled the outline of their proposal to fund the state's Medicaid program.
Jobs bill not the end of economic incentives in 2011
The ink is barely dry on Arizona Competitiveness Package, but business groups and Republican lawmakers have at least one more batch of economic incentives they hope to push through the Legislature this session.
IRC budget based on experience and guesswork
The last statement James Huntwork made as a member of the first Independent Redistricting Commission in his last meeting in June 2009 was that the next IRC would need “a lot of money.”
How much money the newly seated IRC will need is a mystery.
But the thinking of those involved with the first one is that the legal disputes, which consumed so much money last time, will be[...]
Don’t ask, do yell: AHCCCS knew it might not need fed permission to cut patients, but state made a fuss anyway
On Feb. 15, when U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius informed Arizona that it could cut 250,000 people from Medicaid without federal permission, it wasn’t nearly as much of a surprise for Gov. Jan Brewer as it was for most Arizonans.
Critics fear ‘jobs bill’ will cut school money
Nine days after he unveiled an ambitious plan to improve the state’s public schools, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal had a vision of elephants and Alps and Roman legions.
Legislators were genuinely surprised
Brewer and AHCCCS kept the information about the possible implications of the expiration of the demonstration waiver inhouse, and didn’t mention it to legislative leadership.
