AZ legislature and the budget: Hope somebody brought cheese, because there is plenty of whine at the Capitol tonight...

This week at the legislature started quietly - everybody knew stuff was happening, but it was all out of public view.  No one knew when the stalemate over the state's budget was going to break, just that it was going to happen soon.

Turns out "soon" meant "Tuesday".

Some of Tuesday's events - 

...The Republicans scheduled a House Appropriations Committee meeting for early Thursday (8 a.m., HHR1) to consider the House's version of a budget in the form of strike-everything amendments to the package of budget bills passed by the Senate.

...House Speaker Andy Tobin (R-Paulden) then adjourned the session of the House until Thursday, in an apparent attempt to gain an edge in the fight over the budget and Medicaid restoration.

...Arizona Governor Jan Brewer called them all into a special session to force the passage of a budget and Medicaid restoration.

...And the tea party types EXPLODED -

Antenori and Gould are former legislators; Biggs and Tobin should be.


Anyway on Wednesday, the outrage turned into full-scale whinery during the COW sessions (Committees of the Whole) in the respective chambers of the lege.

In the Senate, they excoriated the governor for "hijacking" the "democratic process" (Sen. Judy Burges) and tried to derail the budget with scads of proposed amendments, some overtly hostile, some seemingly innocuous.  All voted down.

Senate COW is done; all parts of the budget passed.  The Senate will meet in Third Read (final approval) session on Thursday.

(Thanks to all of the MSM and legislative types who tweeted from the floor of the Senate.  I may have two eyes and two ears, but that isn't enough to watch and listen to, and understand, two livestreams at one time.)

Over in the House, the debate has become a kabuki theater of sorts - tea party type Republicans have been demanding that the less extreme Republicans who are working with the Democrats and the Governor stand to answer questions.  The less extreme Rs have declined to do that, so the tea party types have one of their compatriots stand in, to proffer criticism of the other Rs, in the form of a faux-answer.

As of this writing, they are taking a break in the House before taking on Medicaid restoration.

To sum up the non-Medicaid debate thus far:

Tea party types decry the "unnecessary abruptness" of the special session.  Ignoring the fact that they've had more than five months to do this but waited until there are about two weeks left in the fiscal year to....delay the budget even longer.

With their hand forced by the special session, the tea party types have taken to criticizing the "lack of tranparency" of the budget process.  Ignoring the fact that most of the last decade's worth of budgets have been done with as much transparency, and when Democrats protested, they just laughed at the Ds.

The tea party types have been reduced to opposing provisions in the BRBs (budget reconciliation bills, or changes to law necessary to make the budget work) that they have supported, even sponsored, earlier in the session.  Ignoring the blatant hypocrisy.

In other words, they are opposing everything in the budget, just because it is in the budget.

As of right now, rumors/expectations are that the lege will adjourn sine die sometime Thursday, but that will only happen if the budget passes first.  If the tea party types are successful in their efforts to derail the state budget and Medicaid restoration, anything could happen.

Here's Biggs' deal: Medicaid restoration in exchange for reducing voting rights

Correction added on 5/15 - during my initial perusal of SB1492, it appeared as if some Medicaid expansion provisions were included in it already.  While there are some changes to AHCCCS provisions contained in it, they are minor and *not* part of a Medicaid restoration package.

Well, the Senate has introduced its budget package, placing the Medicaid restoration plan in the budget itself but adding a kicker, SB1493.

It has the rather innocuous subject of "elections; omnibus".

It really should be called "extortion; all-in-one; every bad election-related scheme offered by the Republicans this year".

There's summarily removing voters from the permanent early voting list (PEVL), effectively barring most schools from serving as polling places, making successful recall elections all but impossible, barring organizations and campaigns from collecting and returning early ballots, elevating administrative barriers to initiative petition drives, and more.

Any one scheme would render a bill "unpassable" (and has, many times during this session); placing them all in one bill means that the Senate leadership (read: Andy Biggs) expects factors other than the merits of the proposals to influence legislators' votes on the bill.

The other bills in the package are:

SB1483, general appropriations
SB1484, capital outlay
SB1485, budget procedures
SB1486, revenue; budget reconciliation
SB1487, K-12 education, budget reconciliation
SB1488, higher education, budget reconciliation
SB1489, government, budget reconciliation
SB1490, criminal justice; budget reconciliation
SB1491, environment; budget reconciliation
SB1492, health, welfare; budget reconciliation (yes, probably the one that eventually will have the Medicaid restoration provisions.)


Senate Appropriations is scheduled to hold a hearing on the bills tomorrow (Wednesday) at 11 a.m. in SHR109.  If you plan to attend, plan to arrive early because seats will be at a premium.  Bring a strong bladder, too - it's going to be a long meeting.

More later...

Thursday in the House: shrouded by secrecy, budget consideration on tap

Transparency be damned!  Stoke the boilers with textbooks, civil rights, and the state's future!  Keep the railroad running at full speed!

Tuesday afternoon, House Speaker Kirk Adams formally introduced ("First Read") the 13 budget-related bills passed by the Senate earlier this month and referred them to the House Appropriations Committee for consideration.

Thursday at 9 a.m., the House Appropriations Committee will hold a special meeting to consider the package of budget bills from the Senate.

Place:  HHR1, State House of Representatives, 1700 West Washington, Phoenix.

On the agenda, which indicates that strike-everything amendments will be offered for each bill:

SB1612, general appropriations, striker not available as yet

SB1613, capital outlay, striker not available as yet

SB1614, budget procedures, striker not available as yet

SB1615, consolidation, state agencies, striker not available as yet

SB1616, revenue, budget reconciliation, striker not available as yet

SB1617, K-12 education, budget reconciliation, striker not available as yet

SB1618, higher education, budget reconciliation, striker not available as yet

SB1619, health, budget reconciliation, striker not available as yet

SB1620, welfare, budget reconciliation, striker not available as yet

SB1621, criminal justice, budget reconciliation, striker not available as yet

SB1622, general government, budget reconciliation, striker not available as yet
 
SB1623, regulation, budget reconciliation, striker not available as yet
 
SB1624, environment, budget reconciliation, striker not available as yet
 
 
Even if they pass the bills "as is," the short notice all but blocks any coherent response to the measures from the people affected by the bills.  On top of that, if strikers are offered, as indicated by the agenda, there will be absolutely no opportunity for analysis of the proposals before they are heard in committee, and that will be the one and only opportunity for the public to weigh in on the measures.
 
Convenient, huh?

The coming week....

...Due to a busy weekend and lots of stuff going on yesterday (some former Senator from Illinois visited Phoenix, and the lege still didn't finish a budget), it's a little later than normal, but here it is...


As usual, all info gathered from the websites (except where noted) of the relevent political bodies/agencies, and subject to change without notice.


...Both chambers of Congress are still in recess until after Labor Day. Next week, Congressman Harry Mitchell (D-AZ5) will hold a "telephone town hall" on health care. The town hall is open to residents of CD5; those interested can sign up here.


...The Arizona Legislature is still in *special* session. The House will hold a brief floor session today, then recess for Rules Committee and Caucus consideration on SB1o25, the General Revenues BRB (aka - the state equalization tax repeal). It will then go into COW and Third Read and it will likely pass the bill and send it on to the Governor for her signature (it's rumored that she is likely to sign it and the rest of the budget).


...The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors held an "Informal" meeting yesterday (told ya this post is a little late :) ). Tomorrow, they'll be holding a "Formal" meeting. The agenda for that meeting looks to be pretty mundane, though one item on it caught my eye.

Item #19 calls for the removal of one "Richard Miranda" from the list of the County's pro tem justices of the peace.

Yes, that is the same "Richard Miranda" who is better known as "State Senator Richard Miranda."

At first glance, I wondered if this move might be payback for the failed budget moves involving Miranda (the Reps somehow "persuaded" him to vote for their budget, before he backed out...no, the *ran* out of the Senate building). Governor Jan Brewer is a former member of the MCBOS and still likely has some influence there. In addition, 4 out of the 5 current supes are highly partisan Reps and probably would have a problem with doing a little political hatchet work on a Dem.

However, a little research on this found that this issue has been percolating for a while, as some there believe that, legally speaking, a sitting member of the lege cannot serve as a JP.

There is some confusion on that issue, however.

Article 4, Part 2, Section 5 of the AZ Constitution, regarding "ineligibility of members of legislature to other public offices", states -

No member of the legislature, during the term for which he shall have been elected or appointed shall be eligible to hold any other office or be otherwise employed by the state of Arizona or, any county or incorporated city or town thereof. This prohibition shall not extend to the office of school trustee, nor to employment as a teacher or instructor in the public school system.

Seem pretty clear, right?

Not so much.

Article 4, Part 2, Section 4 of the same AZ Constitution, regarding disqualification for membership in the legislature, states (emphasis mine) -

No person holding any public office of profit or trust under the authority of the United States, or of this state, shall be a member of the legislature; Provided, that appointments in the state militia and the offices of notary public, justice of the peace, United States commissioner, and postmaster of the fourth class, shall not work disqualification for membership within the meaning of this section.

That's a large area of conflict, so I'm not sure how this is going to play out. Miranda may have a case if he wants to join the scores of others who have brought legal actions against the MCBOS.

Or he may not. I'm not a lawyer or even a knowledgeable amateur scholar of the nuances of Arizona's constitution.

For now though, it doesn't look as if there is any untoward going on here (Republican Russell Pearce was once a pro tem JP, but was removed from the list for the same reason), but the timing of this is still interesting.

Very interesting.

Stay tuned...


...The Tempe City Council is meeting on Thursday (agenda here). The agenda is 95 items long. It looked pretty non-controversial, but I freely admit that I didn't even try to read all of them. They've also scheduled a special meeting for Friday. That purpose of that one is for discussion of the Council's direction for the next year.

Not scheduled to meet this week (so far, anyway) - Arizona Corporation Commission (this week's hearing schedule is here, though), the Governing Board of the Maricopa County Community College District, the Boards of Directors of the Central Arizona Project and the Maricopa Integrated Health System, Arizona Board of Regents, Citizens Clean Elections Commission, and the Scottsdale City Council.

The relative peace of summer breaks will next week. That post will be longer, and on time. :)

Later...

Quick update - budget

Well, the budget may or may not pass tonight.

Update: Change that to will NOT pass tonight. Apparently, they've adjourned until tomorrow. Legislators have been told to change their vacation and other plans.

The motivation to get it done soon is two-fold -

1. There is a deadline, Friday, for passage of any referendum questions to make it to the ballot in November.

2. They don't think that they'll have a quorum, much less the votes to pass a GOP-authored package, after tonight. Too many legislators have made plans to be out of the state this weekend.

Of course, the Senate may not have the votes even tonight. AZCentral.com's Political Insider is reporting that Sen. Ron Gould (R-Freon Freedom Now!) has already said that he won't support referring a tax increase to the ballot.

And given that only 24 Senators answered the roll call today, Senate President Burns et. al. are going to need all of the votes that they can get.

I recommend visiting the lege website's streaming video page and watching the (in)action from the comfort of your home.

While you are waiting for them the jump back on the railroad train to Third World status for Arizona, for your reading pleasure -

HB2006, General Appropriations - text, fact sheet
HB2007, General Revenues BRB - text, fact sheet
HB2008, General Government BRB - text, fact sheet
HB2009, Assets BRB - text, fact sheet
HB2010, Criminal Justice BRB - text, fact sheet
HB2011, K-12 Education BRB - text, fact sheet
HB2012, Higher Ed BRB - text, fact sheet
HB2013, Health and Welfare BRB - text, fact sheet
HB2014, Environment BRB - text, fact sheet
HB2015, Taxes, Budget Stabilization - text (no text available online yet), fact sheet

I have to work tomorrow, so I'll be reading the updates instead of writing them.

Later...

Remaining BRBs

I'm getting too tired for more analyses, so here are links to the other budget bills on Wednesday's Senate Approps agenda -

Capital outlay, striker to SB1027

Criminal Justice BRB, striker to SB1028

(Sale of) Assets, striker to SB1031

General Government BRB, striker to SB1035

General Revenues, striker to SB1036

Health and Welfare BRB, striker to SB1145

General Appropriations, striker to SB1188

Environment BRB, striker to SB1258

The AZ Senate Democrats have posted a link to a .pdf summary of the budget proposal here.

Anyway, I hope to see some of you at Wednesday's committee meeting.

Good night!

Senate BRB - K - 12 Education

Oh, this one has a couple of real gems...

This is from a proposed striker to SB1187 (ALL CAPS INDICATES NEW LANGUAGE) -

ARS 15-185, Section B, paragraph 4 is changed to increase charter school equalization assistance -

Equalization assistance for the charter school shall be determined by adding the amount of the base support level and additional assistance. The amount of the additional assistance is one thousand four hundred seventy-four dollars sixteen cents ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED FORTY-TWO DOLLARS FIFTY-ONE CENTS per student count in kindergarten programs and grades one through eight and one thousand seven hundred eighteen dollars ten cents ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED NINETY-SEVEN DOLLARS SEVENTY-SEVEN CENTS per student count in grades nine through twelve.

ARS 15-342 sections 27 and 34 are changed to allow school districts to sell advertising on school buses and school websites.

(Gem #1) ARS 15-502 is change to add - "THE GOVERNING BOARD SHALL REMOVE UNION REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE SCHOOL DISTRICT PAYROLL."

(Gem #2) ARS 15-504 is added -

PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS WHO ENGAGE IN LOBBYING ACTIVITIES DURING REGULAR SCHOOL HOURS ARE REQUIRED TO REIMBURSE THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OR CHARTER SCHOOL WHERE THEY ARE EMPLOYED FOR THE COST OF HIRING A SUBSTITUTE TEACHER FOR EACH SCHOOL DAY OR PORTION OF A SCHOOL DAY THAT A SUBSTITUTE TEACHER WAS HIRED BECAUSE THAT TEACHER ENGAGED IN LOBBYING ACTIVITY. FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS SECTION, LOBBYING DOES NOT INCLUDE CONDUCT THAT OCCURS DURING A FIELD TRIP FOR PUPILS.

ARS 15-821 is amended so that school districts do not receive two years of state aid payments for students who take kindergarten early (before age 5) and then retake kindergarten. (I don't actually have a problem with this one.)

(Gem #3) ARS 15-901, section B, paragraph 2 decreases base-level state funding for public schools from $3291.42 in school year 2008-2009 to $3201.89 in 2009-2010. Remember the increase for charter schools?

ARS 15-910, section K, paragraph 7 is added to cap monies expended on desegregation efforts to no more than the level spent in 2008-2009. Remember, this striker is proposed by the same guy who hates immigrants and sent out links to a white supremacist website as part of his 2006 campaign.

ARS 15-918.04, section C is added to close the career ladder program to new teachers.

ARS 15-923, section E is added to compel school districts to compensate parents who choose to drive their children to school themselves or make arrangements with other transportation providers. Section F adds the restriction that school districts don't have to reimburse parents for the transportation of the students from other districts or attendance areas within the same district unless the student is enrolled in a special education program.

ARS 42-17151, sections C and D are added to limit the ability of school districts to raise tax levies. Which is a nice two-step on the part of the lege - sweep up any fund balances that may have been built up to pay for capital projects and the like, and then inhibit the ability of the public schools to make up the difference the only way that they can.


More later... (maybe one more before I have to head to bed)

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...

Breaking - Senate Appropriations to consider budget proposal Wednesday morning

A newly-posted agenda for Senate Approps has the committee meeting at 11 a.m. (or upon adjournment of Senate Public Safety) in SHR1 to consider a budget proposal, a capital outlay proposal, and eight budget reconciliation bills (BRBs).

I couldn't find the text of the bills online as yet (I'm on the go, and can't really sit down for a thorough search right now...and they may not even be up yet), but an AP article (via MSN Money) talks about municipal impact fee grabs, privatizing prisons, and, of course, massive cuts to education and human services.

More later after I get home...

House Appropriations Budget Hearing - Tuesday, 10 a.m.

On Tuesday morning (or *this* morning as you read this) the House Appropriations Committee will meet to consider the Republican budget proposal (10 a.m., HHR1).

It's pretty short notice, so I won't be able to do an in-depth look at all of the Budget Reconciliation Bills (BRBs) associated with the budget, but here are a few of the lowlights -

HB2635 - BRB Revenues

- Repeals the State Equalization Property Tax (they've been trying to do this for years, so...of course)

- Takes $210 million in development fees from cities and towns on one hand, and bars those same cities and towns from raising development fees to recover the revenue lost.

- Redirects lottery revenue from the Court Appointed Special Advocate fund to the state's General Fund. (In the General Appropriations bill, the Reps propose to appropriate $2.2 million for CASA, but to then transfer more than $3.4 million in CASA funds to the General Fund.)


HB2634 - Capital Outlay

- I don't know enough in this area to comment, but it's worth linking to for those who are interested in looking into it.


HB2636 - BRB General Government

- Allows county governments to implement reductions in work hours and furloughs for civil service employees and makes such unappealable.

- Eliminates the 21st Century Fund appropriation.


HB2637 - BRB State Properties

- Mandates that the state sell the State Agricultural Laboratory property at 2422 W. Holly in Phoenix


HB2638 - BRB Criminal Justice

- Raises all kinds of fees for those on parole, probation, or intensive probation

- Requires that $2 million in Court Diversion fee monies be transferred to the General Fund; CD fee monies in excess of $2 million will be transferred to the Crime Laboratory Operations Fund. If there are less than $2 million in CD fee monies, the difference must come from Crime Lab Operations Fund


HB2639 - BRB K-12 Education

- There's all kinds of technical stuff with funding formulas and percentages here; I'll leave coverage of that to David Safier at Blog for Arizona. He's the resident expert on legislative issues relating to education in the AZ blogosphere.

- Phases out the Career Ladder Program and Teacher Performance Pay

- Closes new enrollments to the Early Graduation Scholarship Program. Existing students get to remain if money is available

- Bars the funding of new school construction


HB2640 - BRB Higher Education

- Suspends the requirement for FY 2009-10 for the Legislature to appropriate $2 for every $1 raised by student fees deposited into the Arizona Financial Aid Trust


HB2641 - BRB Health and Welfare

- Wreaks all kinds of nastiness upon AHCCCS including the elimination of KidsCare Parents. This one will probably warrant its own post

- Takes Lottery Funds earmarked to go to DES for homeless services and diverts them to the General Fund

- Allows any person to sue, on behalf of the state, another person for making false claims for medical services, and sets forth how the persons bringing such lawsuits can profit from same



HB2642 - BRB Environment

- Repeals the Arizona Agricultural Protections Act (here and here)

- Takes more than $7 million from the State Land Department


Interesting stuff from HB2633, the General Appropriations Bill -

- Suspend GF support for the Arizona Commission on the Arts

- Restore FY09 reductions for the State Board for Charter Schools

- No Early Kindergarten

- Eliminate Alzheimer's research funding

- Cut (or eliminate, that's unclear here) the Nuclear Emergency Management Fund (Hey - eliminating the Health Crisis Fund in FY2009 has worked out so well in the face of the swine flu pandemic, we should expand the scheme, right?)

- Cut all sorts of funds from the Attorney General's office. The office that is run by the Democratic AG and presumptive Democratic nominee for governor next year

- Implement minimal or no cuts to the offices of the Governor, Treasurer, Secretary of State, or Mine Inspector - Republicans one and all. I'm not sure what, if any, cuts have been proposed for the State Superintendent of Public Education - there are all kinds of cuts to the Department of Education, but I'm not sure if any apply to Tom Horne's office itself

- Implements a fund swipe of $7 million from the Early Childhood Development & Health Fund (subject to ongoing litigation - this one may be subject to Voter Protection Act restrictions)


A press release on the topic from the House Democrats is here; the JLBC summary of the bills (BRBs and Gen Approps) is here.


It should be a looonnnng meeting on Tuesday...

BRBs - Conclusion

To summarize the rest of the interesting stuff in the AZ legislature's budget reconciliation bills -

HB2784, Tax Reduction Package - The big one here was language exempting admission to an NBA All-Star Game and related events from the Transaction Privilege Tax (sales tax). The exemption is conditional - the NBA must award a game to Phoenix and Phoenix must also grant an exemption from its municipal TPT before this takes effect.

D17's Rep. Ed Ableser objected strenuously to this provision (though he voted 'yes' on the overall bill), citing the fact that the extremely successful NBA doesn't need it. [I'm sure the screw job that the NBA pulled on the Suns in the playoffs had *nothing* to do with it. :)) ]

Defenders of the exemption cited the fact that it's not a giveaway to the NBA; the money just wouldn't be collected.

Ummm, one of the reasons that any city welcomes this kind of event, with all of the headaches that come with it, is the increased tax revenue.

Why is the legislature messing with that? Could it have anything to do with the fact that with ticket prices for this year's all star game in Las Vegas reaching five digits ($10,000+ !!), the people that will benefit most from the lege's largesse are the kind of people to make large campaign contributions?


HB2785, Budget Procedures - Adds language that "requires an officer in charge of any statewide, county or legislative election to provide for a live video recording of the custody of all ballots located in a counting center and to retain the recording as a public record."

While there may be some hiccups with the implementation of this, the core idea is a good one.


HB2791, Higher Education - In what is possibly the best nugget (new policy slipped into a budget reconciliation bill), this one contains language creating a "Math, Science and Special Education Teacher Student Loan Program."

This is very similar to Rep. David Schapira's Teacher Student Loan Program that was killed by the chair of the House Rules Committee (it was assigned to the committee but never heard).


HB2789, Health and Welfare - I missed something in yesterday's post on this BRB. While HealthCare Group wasn't completely killed, as some Republicans were trying to do, it was capped at the current enrollment. No new employer groups can be accepted into HCG. In addition, a study committee was created to determine whether or not HCG should be killed.

Note to out-of-state readers: HCG is a state-sponsored health plan that provides coverage to employees of small businesses ( <50 employees) that would otherwise go without healthcare insurance.


Most of the other BRBs seem to be pretty clean, though it's very possible (even likely) that I missed something in some of the more arcane language. If you have a few minutes, go to the lege's website and read the bills for yourself.

I should note here that the sources of much of this post, and the previous BRB posts, include:

the language of the bills themselves (available on the lege's website);

the 'fact sheets' prepared by legislative staffers (also on the website); and

the latest 'Farley-gram' (sign up for it. Trust me. :) ).

Whew!

Later!

BRB - Criminal Justice

This one, HB2787, contains a particularly rancid bit of ugliness.

The bill includes language that would require anybody who is arrested for any reason to submit a DNA sample to be included in the state's DNA profile database. Not only that, but it makes failure to submit a sample a violation of bail. Lastly, in the event that charges are dropped or the defendant is acquitted, it places the burden of petitioning the state to remove their DNA profile from the database on the exonerated defendant.

Contrast this with the lege's zeal at repealing the ignition interlock device provisions of the law for those convicted of DUI.

Am I the only one who sees the disconnect here?

I don't know who slipped the language into the bill, but they should be hanging their heads in shame right about now.

I have a suggestion for the lege the next time they come up with some legislation that they think is so wonderful - replace the name of whatever group they are targeting with the phrase "any person who holds elective office."

If the new language then is something that they are uncomfortable with, maybe they should reconsider foisting it off on the rest of us.

Anyway, kudos to the two Democrats who voted against this bill, Reps. Kyrsten Sinema and Tom Prezelski.

Not to be lost in the stench of the DNA provision is the the part of the bill that continues the never-ending quest by the Republicans to incarcerate society and to privatize that incarceration.

The language calls for the construction of facilities for 6000 more prison beds. In addition, it mandates that a full third of those beds be controlled by private, for profit, imprisonment vendors.

Ugh.

Yup, with nothing really good to balance the badness, this BRB is definitely the worst of the bunch.

More later...

BRB - Health and Welfare

HB2789 - Health and Welfare Budget Reconciliation

Bad –

In a curious move, the BRB removes language that defines a 'small' business (“...employed two but not more than twenty-five persons...”) and replaces it with a definition of an 'uninsured small' business (“...a small employer that did not provide a health benefits plan for at least six consecutive months...”).

Potentially very ugly -

The bill includes the following language regarding autism services:

1. An established firm that specializes in autism services and related disorders and that employs at least five nationally board certified behavior analysts, one of whom is a state-licensed psychologist. The contract shall be for services that are for children who begin treatment before they reach five years of age and that utilize techniques of discrete trial and natural environment intensive behavioral treatment through applied behavioral analysis.

2. An autism and research firm that is based in this state and that has raised at least fifteen million dollars of private sector monies. The contract shall be for providing toddlers with autism services that utilize intensive early intervention.

Now that's how you put in language favoring specific companies! :))

Good -

The BRB removes a 'gag' rule that prevented schools from advising possibly eligible residents of the existence of programs such as AHCCCS.

Not sure -

There were a couple of sections, such as those relating insurer data reporting requirements, that caused my eyes to glaze over. I have no idea if these sections are bad or good. I couldn't stay awake long enough for the meaning of the words to reach my brain. :)

Perhaps another blogger, one that is used to reading densely written legalese (are you reading this Michael of Blog for Arizona? LOL), could take the time to go through some of the sections to see if there is anything particularly repugnant hidden in them.

More coming...

The budget's in the home stretch...

...and the end of this year's legislative session is in sight...

Well, it looks like the lege is finally going to pass a budget within the next day or so.

Yesterday, the Senate amended and passed a number of budget-related bills and transmitted them to the House. Earlier today, the House Democratic and Republican caucuses heard the bills, clearing the way for floor action.

Today and tomorrow, I plan to do a series of posts addressing some of the nuggets of ugly (and good, where they exist) in the various budget reconciliation bills (BRBs).

First up - HB2790, K-12 Education BRB

Ugly -

A section that requires that someone applying for or renewing a teaching certificate submit an identity-verified fingerprint card and, even though it is a condition of employment, pay for the processing of the card and its related paperwork themselves.

Oh yeah – in a jab at teachers at public and publicly-chartered schools, nothing in the language in the section applies to private schools.

Not sure if this is ugly or good -

A section that creates “an instructional technology pilot program” to upgrade classroom academic technology in one school district TBD.

The reason that I'm unsure about this is that I seem to recall that a similar proposal was floated as an independent bill earlier in the session. One of the arguments raised against that proposal was that it was worded in such a way that there was only one vendor who could supply all of the needed equipment and software. In other words, it was a 'sweetheart' bill.

I don't see that the BRB language has anything that specifies how the money would be spent, so this section might actually be good, or at least harmless.

Good -

There is a section establishing a math or science achievement program. “The purpose of the program is to promote improved pupil achievement in mathematics or science by providing supplemental funding for innovative mathematics or science programs.”

Actually, pending the creation of standards and criteria for the program by the State Board of Ed, this could be really good.

More later!