Friends 'O Farley News Flash

What's Brewin' in the Gov's Office?

Here's the latest from Steve Farley, Arizona State Representative, District 28, Policy Leader of the House Democratic Caucus sfarley@azleg.gov You can sign up to receive his newsletter.

There's not a lot going on in the Governor's Office for that matter, it appears. The Governor Stimulus Watch is still ongoing -- there are now a mere 17 days left for Governor Brewer to submit a simple one-paragraph letter to the Federal Government stating that she will accept the stimulus money to create jobs and boost the economy, and there is no indication from the Feds that she has done so.

The Arizona Guardian, a new web-based newspaper that covers the Capitol exclusively, reports this morning that she told them that she mailed a very long and embellished letter on March 5 that was supposed to serve as the certification letter. However, it has not yet appeared on the official U.S. website, so perhaps it never made it into the mailbox.

If you want to follow the story, and see if she ever does mail that letter, you can read about state recovery efforts on that website.

There you will find examples of the other very simple letters already sent by 35 other governors. You won't find ours yet, however.

You can also find links from this page to 37 other state websites which have been set up in the spirit of accountability and transparency to let their citizens know what is happening with the stimulus money. Arizona doesn't have one of those websites, either.

Other states like Oklahoma and California have already put people to work and put shovels in the ground on stimulus-funded projects. Let's hope the Governor gets on the ball and lets us all know that we will accept all the money to which we are entitled, and lets us know exactly where it is going. If not, the Legislature will have to step in. And I'm not optimistic about those prospects...

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Remember last week when I wrote about the thousands of kids who would have been tossed off childcare yesterday unless we acted? Well we actually did act last Thursday. Although we wouldn't have had to act this late if Republican leadership had only listened to what Democrats were saying in January about how much stimulus we had coming.

Even though the fix should have been simple, Senate Republican leadership couldn't resist adding an item that would have raided $17 million from Arizona cities in the form of state shared revenues. This raid would likely have forced cities to lay off critical public safety personnel with no warning. Luckily we stripped that provision in the House and the Senate reluctantly agreed to go along with us, after some drama in which the Senate Majority Whip Pam Gorman (R-Anthem) for a time was lobbying against her own President Bob Burns (R-Glendale).

The childcare funding was restored for now, but is still in danger if we are not careful as we develop the Fiscal 2010 budget. This childcare money is actually coming from federal stimulus money, and we have $32 million more available to fund the program next year. All we have to do to claim it is to provide language to appropriate it. Hopefully we can get that done this time without a fix after the fact.

Today House Democrats received an update on the stimulus picture, which is still not completely clear even if the Governor does get around to sending in the request letter. Here are the latest numbers of what we know now:

If we keep the Fiscal 2009 cuts in place, we are looking at a $2.8 billion deficit for Fiscal 2010. We have a total of approximately $2.2 billion that we can use to fill that deficit for Fiscal 10 and/or 11. We could also use some of that to restore some of the $600 million in programs that were cut in FY09. But in order to obtain all that money, we will need to make sure that we maintain the same funding levels as we spent in 2006 for education and healthcare.

Bottom line is that it looks like we will be able to fill about $1.8 billion of the deficit in Fiscal 09 and 10 and $417 million in Fiscal 11. That's about $1 billion or more short of what we need, and state revenue collections from sales and income tax in February 09 are down about 20% under February 08.

We hear that ASU economists have determined that, even if we do get all the stimulus funds to which we are entitled, we will end up getting less than most other states. Economist Lee McPheters told us that we lost 4.5% of the jobs lost nationwide from 12/07 to 1/09, but the stimulus package is projected to restore only 1.9% of the national jobs created by the stimulus. So the budget picture remains murky and bleak for now. More on that later.

Back to Budget Week -- you may ask, what is the Legislative majority doing to get to work on the budget this week?

It turns out they're not doing much at all. They are hearing, COWing and voting on only one emergency bill, HB2630. Its entire purpose is to delay a deadline from April 15 to June 15 under which school boards are required to give notice to teachers that they will or will not be renewing their contracts for the upcoming year.

This is only budget related because the budget is late and education funding is unclear. School districts are not sure how much money they will be receiving from the state, and therefore they do not know if they will have to lay off teachers, increase class sizes, or do a number of other terrible things if the Legislature does not stand up for education.

Perhaps we could avoid the deadline-moving bill entirely, and simply stand up for education and get the budget work done by April 15. Shockingly, we don't even know at this point if the Governor and the Legislature will be able to come together on any budget by even June 15.

For some of us who thought that Republicans might be able to work together to accomplish their goals more efficiently given that they control all the levers of power in this state, the infighting has been really astonishing. Governor Brewer has been under constant attack from her right, including a comment during a public caucus meeting from Sen. Ron Gould (R-Lake Havasu)--the senator who walked out on her speech--where he said, "I thought our governor's name was Jan, not Janet."

While it may be entertaining to watch the Republicans fight, I just wish they could cut out the drama and get down to the business of balancing this budget without hurting Arizona families. The longer we wait to get there, the more people will get hurt.

Finally tonight, be sure to tune in to Arizona Illustrated this Friday, March 20, at 6:30 on Channel 6 as I will join Rep. Frank Antenori (R-Somewhere in Southern Arizona) for a rematch of our January Friday Roundtable show as we field questions from the panel of esteemed local journalists and everyone's favorite local news guy, Bill Buckmaster.

Thanks for staying involved in your state government, however crazy it may sometimes seem. It remains a huge honor for me to be able to serve you up here, and help put your voice of reason forward on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Steve

Steve Farley
Arizona State Representative, District 28
Policy Leader, House Democratic Caucus
Ranking Member, Transportation Committee
Ways & Means Committee
Capitol office: 602-926-3022
Tucson office: 520-398-6000
Official email: sfarley@azleg.gov