State, university workers may face forced time off

Parents who want their youngsters to go to kindergarten all day may need to once again pay tuition.

The state may hold off building new schools even where there is population growth.

And schools may have to use the same textbooks for an additional year.

Those are some options being discussed as legislative leaders try to figure out how to plug a $1.2 billion gap between current spending levels and the amount of tax dollars they expect to receive. That's out of a $9.9 billion budget.

But the fixes — including unplanned and unpaid time off — easily could extend beyond the end of this fiscal year on June 30. Some estimates put the deficit for next budget year at more than $2 billion, or more if the current rate of spending continues.

Forced time off is a "definite possibility," Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said Tuesday.

Figures prepared by legislative budget staffers estimate the state would save about $126 million a year if most workers were forced to take two days off a month without pay.

Kavanagh, who will chair the House Appropriations Committee in the upcoming legislative session, said the alternatives are worse.

"I certainly would rather see furloughs or pay cuts before I start laying people off," he said. "And I suspect most employees, other than the senior ones, would probably agree."

That $126 million savings assumes some agencies would be exempt, such as the Department of Corrections and the Arizona State Hospital.

Incoming Senate President Bob Burns, R-Peoria, said reducing personnel costs has to be part of the mix to balance the budget. But Burns said he is not yet convinced that the forced time off is the best course of action in all cases.

"It seems to me it might be better in some cases … to leave it up to the agency," he said, to figure out how best to live within the reduced budgets. "It might be a combination of layoffs and furloughs in order to get their costs down where they're manageable."

Along the same lines, one option being considered is simply telling agency directors that they have to cut spending by a set percentage, perhaps as high as 20 percent, and let them decide how to do that.

Part of the problem lawmakers face is that voters have placed about half of state spending legally off limits to cuts. That includes about $4 billion in basic state aid to education as well as close to $1 billion to provide free health care to anyone below the federal poverty level, a figure that translates to $21,200 for a family of four.

But some related programs are subject to the budget ax.

Lawmakers are looking at the program pushed through the Legislature by Gov. Janet Napolitano that now requires the state to pay for children to attend kindergarten on a full-day basis, up from a half day. Kavanagh said the state could save $200 million just by scrapping that law.

He also said another $200 million might be saved by reducing allocations for schools for certain capital expenses, like textbooks.

Also under the microscope are formulas used to determine when the state should finance construction of new schools.

The state also provides some additional subsidized health care for people making above the federal poverty level, a program that is not constitutionally protected.

None of this, he acknowledged, will be popular.

"You've got to have people who are willing to stand up to the political heat," Kavanagh said.