Tuesday, May 19, 2009

The Senate budget proposal...Higher Ed BRB

On Wednesday, the AZ Senate's Appropriations Committee will be considering a number of bills related to a budget proposal.

The cynic in me (which as any regular reader knows is never far from the surface) believes that the short notice of the hearing is to minimize the ability of those affected by the bills to organize an effective response.

Note: Since I'm trying to do the analyses on the fly, there will probably be some mistakes. I'll correct them when they are brought to my attention, but I strongly advise folks who are interested in these topics to read the relevant BRBs.

Here are some of the lowlights of the proposals, starting with the Higher Education budget reconciliation bill (striker to SB1029) (THEIR EMPHASIS INDICATING NEW LANGUAGE) -

(h/t to commenter testcase for spotting this)

ARS 15-1626,

section A, paragraph 5 - All other tuition and fee revenue shall beretained by each university for expenditure as approved by the board, except that APPROPRIATED BY THE LEGISLATURE

section B. THE BOARD SHALL NOT ALLOW ANY UNIVERSITY UNDER THE JURISDICTION OF THE BOARD TO REQUIRE ITS STUDENTS TO PURCHASE A MEAL PLAN OR LIVE IN ON-CAMPUS HOUSING.


15-1682.03

Eliminates new buildings and cuts the allowance for capital outlays from $800 million to $167,671,200.


There are also a number of changes to reporting and calculation functions that I've seen in other bills that never made it into law, but I don't understand the actual impact of them to comment on them.

At first glance, we should all be scared of their scheme to grab all of the state universities' revenue for themselves; it's one step from the lege actually setting tuition and fees directly. Once that happens, they'll be able to raise taxes on students and their families without looking like they're raising taxes.

More BRBs later...

3 comments:

Unknown said...

how about this one:

THE REPORT SHALL INCLUDE A LIST OF INVITED PAID SPEAKERS AND ASSOCIATED COSTS FOR
THOSE SPEAKERS AND THIS PORTION OF THE REPORT SHALL BE SUBMITTED
ELECTRONICALLY.


They want to review paid speakers who come to the university. Thats just great.

Unknown said...

One more thing. I don't get the $167,671,200. This seems like a rather precise number - I wonder what this is meant for.

just jen said...

this is retribution. and it is morally reprehensible. they're pissed off that they are being called out as anti-public/higher education. it's as if they're saying, "Okay, then. How about you get nothing, we grow our local government to include babysitting you, and we put you in time out should you ever rally behind a political platform that calls us out as being the a-holes we know we are. How do you like them apples?"

why don't the take the kids' lunch money while they're at it.