Senate advancing bipartisan $17.6 billion Arizona budget

On the “too small” side, Senate Minority Leader Priya Sundareshan, a Tucson Democrat, said she cannot support the $17.6 billion spending plan because it leaves out too many priorities that Democrats support. Those range from providing assistance for child care to ensuring that money promised for education will be there in future years.

On the “too big” side, Republican Sen. Vince Leach, also from Tucson, pointed to a report issued two months ago by the Finance Advisory Committee that said the state’s tax collections will not be as large as originally estimated. And Leach said it will be even worse if there is an economic downtown.

He also complained that Republican legislative leaders were essentially “buying’’ GOP votes for the package: Those who agreed to support it would get $5 million to earmark for their own priorities.

Leach said the budget is chock full of those special items like local road construction projects. “All these little towns are getting a little bit of money,’’ he said.

These all add up, he noted — even as the budget package contains no money for items he considers a higher priority, such as increasing pay for state corrections officers.

Leach’s “no’’ vote means he doesn’t get to earmark some dollars for local projects.

Senate President Warren Petersen, who sent out a message to recalcitrant lawmakers warning they won’t get a share, was unapologetic.

“You don’t say, ‘I want this’ and vote ‘no,’ ‘’ he told Capitol Media Services.

Sen. John Kavanagh, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, rejected any suggestion this amounts to extortion.

“After we took care of some significant needs in the ‘baseline,’ which is the bulk of the budget, we agreed to allow members to control a small amount for their districts if they were for the budget,’’ said the Fountain Hills Republican. “If they’re not for the budget they don’t get their little share.’’

Both Sundareshan and Leach conceded that, despite their bipartisan objections, there still are enough votes from their respective colleagues to get the package enacted.

Sundareshan said she is not angry with her Democratic colleagues who decided to go along, even though she is not. She said they got the best they were going to get given the amount of money available, though Sundareshan said there would have been more had Republicans not sharply cut income taxes and approved expansion of a program to provide vouchers of tax dollars so parents can send their children to private and religious schools or homeschool them.

Sen. Rosanna Gabaldon, a Green Valley Democrat, said she’s voting for the package because it “was a deal that was made.”

“It was bipartisan. Senate Republicans and the Governor’s Office and some of us Senate Democrats came together. And we’re supporting the budget.’’

Still, there were plenty of things left for senators to debate.

One was an effort by Sen. Jake Hoffman to add a provision requiring the state’s three universities to cut tuition for in-state students by 2.5%, which would amount to a decrease of about $314 a year. The Queen Creek Republican cited figures showing tuition averaging $2,576 in the 2002-2003 school year but has now risen to about $12,500.

Sen. Lauren Kuby said the efforts to lower tuition through a legislative edict ignore an important fact. “The reason tuition has had to rise is because of the defunding of public education, particularly higher education, in this state,’’ said the Tempe Democrat.

Hoffman’s amendment failed. So did his separate proposal to deny in-state tuition to students without legal status to be in the country, something he acknowledged could override a 2022 voter-approved provision.

Also going down to defeat — again, because the governor disapproves — was Hoffman’s plan to allow students attending private and religious colleges to participate in the state’s Teachers Academy program.

That program provides one year of college tuition at public community colleges and universities in education programs for each year of teaching in an Arizona public school. Hoffman said expanding the program to private schools — Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, which bills itself as a Christian school, has specifically lobbied for the change — would increase the pool of those who will go into teaching to deal with the current shortage.

But he acknowledged there’s also a philosophical agenda here. “We can get non-woke, well-trained teachers into our classrooms, people who actually just want to do reading, writing, math, science, history as opposed to teach all the LBGTQ, etc.,’’ he said.

Only six Republicans, out of 30 senators, voted to go along.

Final Senate action will send the package to the House where there is expected to be a similar bipartisan agreement to adopt it.

Even after that, there are a number of controversial legislative issues confronting lawmakers, including limiting who can own land in Arizona based on their country of citizenship; expanding animal cruelty laws; allowing the Arizona Diamondbacks to divert sales tax revenues to repairs at Chase Field; and extending Prop. 123, which provides more money for K-12 education through withdrawals from a state land trust fund.