Gov. Doug Ducey or whoever succeeds him can't conduct a future financial raid on a school trust fund account without first getting congressional approval, a judge has ruled. 

Gov. Doug Ducey is asking a federal appeals court to overturn a ruling that could affect his ability and that of future governors to tap a special education trust account to funnel more cash into schools.

The $17 million in School Facilities Board funding that Ducey included in his executive budget plan won’t hold off a long-planned lawsuit over dollars for K-12 building maintenance and renewal.

Even before the special session that potentially resolved a years-long lawsuit over K-12 education funding, Arizona lawmakers’ spending on schools was the talk of the summer.

Each year without failure since the onset of the Great Recession, Democrats have denounced cuts to public education and clamored for more funding for K-12 schools, a demand that has gotten louder as the state’s economy improves.

Gov. Doug Ducey is planning revisions to his plan to boost K-12 school funding with the state land trust, including one that would address the fiscal cliff the plan leaves at the end of its first five years.

A nearly $200 million drop in the value of Arizona's permanent land trust in the past three months highlights the risks of Gov. Doug Ducey's plan to rely on high investment returns to power his school funding plan, state Treasurer Jeff DeWit said this week.

The Ninth Floor today issued a memo to lawmakers in response to DeWit’s criticism of his plan to boost K-12 funding through increased payouts from the state land trust. The memo, written by OSPB Director Lorenzo Romero, didn’t directly refer to DeWit or his email to lawmakers, but it did address several of the issues the treasurer raised.

With the clock winding down on a court ruling that temporarily preserved millions in funding for the Arizona State Land Department, the agency is looking at a pair of contingency plans that could keep it afloat for the next year.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs' Navajo Area director, Omar Bradley, has signed the final documents taking 405 acres of land into trust for the Navajo Nation.