Arizona Fact Check looks at House Speaker Kirk Adams' claim that: "Today we can say—for the first time in a decade—that Arizona's budget is structurally balanced without relying on any gimmicks, accounting tricks or borrowing."

The verdict: Mostly false, because the budget is riddled with gimmicks and accounting tricks.

Bottom line: Adams is inaccurate when he says the budget contains no accounting tricks and gimmicks. The package contains fund transfers, forced payments and rollovers. However, he is correct in saying the plan does not contain new borrowing.

[AZ Fact Check]

Hello all! As expected, the Governor signed the budget that includes the fund sweeps from parks and ensures more park closures, layoffs of parks personnel, and more. This is a bad budget for our state parks and for Arizona overall. It was put together behind closed doors and was jammed through by suspending the rules and ignoring key concerns. The process was so bad that they actually passed a bill thinking it had been amended, when it had not. They sought to have the Governor send it back, but apparently her staff recognized the impropriety of doing so. What a big mess.

Also, the bill to limit public involvement in transmission line siting in Arizona is still alive. If you have not done so, please contact your representatives and ask them to oppose the strike everything amendment on SB1517 (Melvin, Aboud: Antenori, et al). It deals with transmission lines; environmental compatibility certificates. All transmission lines that are greater than 115 kilovolts must get a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and go through the line siting process. This proposed striker is being proposed by the proponents of the proposed SunZia Southwest Transmission Project, which consists of two 500 kilovolt transmission lines that if built, will stretch across about 460 miles of Arizona and New Mexico. Several of the proposed locations in Arizona would affect important public lands and wildlife habitat, including the San Pedro River and the Aravaipa watershed.

The proponents have been trying to jam this bill through this session, so the project is not subject to review and approval, denial, or approval with conditions by the Arizona Power Plant and Transmission Line Siting Committee process. It will limit public input and access to information and potentially give Arizona less of a voice on these multi-state projects.

You can call the House at (602) 926-4221 and ask for your representatives.

And ask House members to oppose SB1167 S/E: legislation; referenda challenges (Yarbrough). The bill has a strike-everything that would enact an emergency measure to establish a statute of limitations for actions to challenge the legal sufficiency of a measure referred by the legislature. It says they must

From Rep. Steve Farley's newsletter, The Farley Report:

We felt a small bit of hope at one point when Rep. John Fillmore (R-Apache Junction) rose to say that he actually supported an amendment by Anna Tovar (D-Tolleson) to restore transplant funding and pay for it entirely in private funds. He praised our arguments from the entire evening and our public service, and the articulate way in which we stood up for Arizonans. Our tired spirits as Democrats were lifted by the vision of a Republican actually saying nice things about us and acknowledging our hard work in opposition.

Then he yelled out "April Fools!" and went on to trash everything we stood for. The harshly partisan and mean-spirited nature of the process and majority rhetoric on the floor was revealed once again in a particularly nasty way. Needless to say, not many of us Democrats were laughing.

[HT: Blog for Arizona]

The budget sweeps funds that keep the Parks open and maintained. SB1612 general appropriations 2011-2012 (Biggs, Klein, Murphy, et al.) sweeps the Enhancement Fund of approximately $2,090 000. This is particularly outrageous as this fund consists of the user fees we all pay to use the parks. It also takes $1,491,100 from the State Lake Improvement Fund in this current fiscal year, among other sweeps. This will create a huge cash flow issue for parks and make it nearly impossible for the agency to pay its rent, meet payroll or pay for operations.

At this point they are not going to back off on this budget, so all we can do is express our disappointment and make a point to let other people know how they voted and hold them accountable. The House voted 40-19-1 to support SB1612. It was straight down party lines. Representative Hale was gone. To view the vote detail, click on SB1612 vote. Please call them and express your outrage at both how they did the budget and what is in it!

Legislators inserted an “intent clause” in the measure, SB1619, saying they wanted the transplant services, which were discontinued by a law adopted last year, to be funded. But they provided no money to back up their intent. Neither did they authorize the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System to find the money within the agency for those services.

In fact, the bill did not lift language in statute that specifically disallows the transplant services, a decision that drove home the severity of Arizona’s festering fiscal crisis.

So what you have is a bill that orders AHCCCS to still not provide those medical services and then also says legislators wanted them funded.

[AZ Capitol Times]

Legislative Republicans shoved a budget through the Senate and House that kills jobs, massively cuts education and kicks hundreds of thousands of people off of health care. Unfortunately, the attack on middle class Arizonans in this budget is very real.

“The Republican budget is devastating to Arizona’s economic recovery and confirms that Legislative Republicans do not prioritize education or Arizona’s families,” said Senate Minority Leader David Schapira. “Republicans blatantly ignore the cumulative effect of the hundreds of millions of dollars they have cut over the past several years. And despite their claims otherwise, there is no funding in this budget to restore transplant coverage that could save the lives of nearly 100 Arizonans.”

The Republican budget:

Cuts $511 million, a higher cut than any proposal to date, from AHCCCS and results in an additional $1.2 billion loss in federal matching dollars.

Cuts up to 280,000 people from health care coverage.

Cuts $183 million from K-12 education in addition to the $600 million cut in the last four years.

Cuts $198 million from universities in addition to the over $200 million cut in the last four years.

Cuts $73 million from community colleges in addition to the over $50 million cut in the last four years.

Cuts the Department of Economic Security by $50 million.

Cuts 13,000 children from receiving daycare services.

Cuts the Department of Health Services by $53 million.

“The message Legislative Republicans send in this budget is that they do not care about the middle class,” said Senate Assistant Minority Leader Leah Landrum Taylor. “This budget will make college unaffordable for many students and will result in tax increases for all homeowners.”

When the bills were deliberated in the Senate, Senate Democrats offered solutions to lessen the devastating cuts to education and Arizona’s families, but the Republicans voted against all of the amendments.

“This is the dawn of a dark chapter in Arizona’s history,” said Senate Minority Whip Paula Aboud. “We should be helping Arizonans to survive this economic crisis, but instead this budget cuts the lifeline to our vulnerable citizens and our fragile education system. The Republican message to Arizonans is ‘do more with less’, but instead they are asking Arizonans to do more with practically nothing.”

Today the Arizona State Senate passed a balanced budget and sent it to the Governor. The Senate budget used no gimmicks, no new rollovers and no borrowing. This fulfills a commitment our leadership team made to the people of Arizona. I know our Members faced difficult decisions. The budget reductions they supported are reasonable. By balancing the budget now, we don’t pass the buck to future generations. For years, the Legislature has played games with the Arizona budget. Those games ended today, and our state has a brighter future because of the votes of our Republican caucus.

Brewer and lawmakers are working to close a projected $1.1 billion budget shortfall. They've been trying to bridge differences between Brewer's proposal and an $8.1 billion budget plan approved by the Senate earlier this month.

Adams says some implementation provisions to include in the budget bills still are being drafted. About half of the overall savings would come from scaling back the state's Medicaid program.

[AP via KOLD]

Records show that Hill, a father of eight, has been embroiled for years in an ugly Family Court dispute with his wife (they are legally separated).

A few years ago, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Susanna Pineda awarded the wife sole custody of the minor children (that's unusual), writing, "Father has a history of exploding by verbally calling the minor children vulgar names and using intimidating gestures towards Mother and the children...Father choked Mother at one point and physically abused the family pet in front of the children."

Choking Mom? Bad enough.

But physically abusing the family pet? Damn!

Judge Pineda concluded that the custody arrangement "is reasonable given Father's mental health and anger management issues...[his] erratic and violent behavior, [and his] long history of domestic violence against Mother and the children."

The court file notes that Hill was suspended in 2006 from his job at a supermarket "because of his irrational behavior," and was hospitalized for a time for depression and possible suicidal thoughts.

After his discharge, the file continues, Hill allegedly threatened his work supervisor and his wife — the latter "fled the marital home with the minor children and all pets," and won a court order of protection.

Last January 11, according to a court Conciliation Services report, Hill, his estranged wife, and five of their children discussed the dysfunctional situation in a controlled setting.

"All [of the children] agreed that their father is not sincere about his past behavior," the facilitator wrote. "The father said he was and did not know what he could do."

Interestingly, Hill said a few days after his scathing letter against the Latino students came to light that his wife is of Hispanic heritage.

Read the whole thing here. And remember: Republican Sen. Al Melvin of the Catalina Foothills and Oro Valley praised Klein's courage in reading this letter.

[Phoenix New Times]

Hello all! It appears that the Arizona Legislature has finished its work in committees and now will be addressing legislation primarily on the Floor. This means a few of the really awful bills may die for the session. Of course they can always suspend the rules to consider a measure — or amendment it on to another bill — and then there is the budget. As I indicated last week, the Senate budget is a disaster on many levels. We need to let the Governor and the House Leadership know that we care about Parks and ask them to remove the provisions in the budget that would significantly harm them.

The Senate budget sweeps funds that keep the Parks open and maintained. SB1612 general appropriations 2011-2012 (Biggs, Klein, Murphy, et al.) sweeps the Enhancement Fund of approximately $2,090 000. This is particularly outrageous as this fund consists of the user fees we all pay to use the parks. It also takes $1,491,100 from the State Lake Improvement Fund in this current fiscal year. If passed by the House and signed by the Governor, this will create a huge cash flow issue for parks and make it nearly impossible for the agency to pay its rent, meet payroll or pay for operations.

SB1624 environment; 2011-2012; budget reconciliation (Biggs, Murphy, Pearce, et al) requires the State Parks Board to cut a bad deal for parks and the public. State Parks must issue requests for proposals for the private operation of some or all state parks, and requires the Board to allow a private entity to manage at least one park that was profitable in FY 2011 and at least one other park that was either not profitable or closed in FY 2011. The Board must award a contract by February 1, 2012.

Please call or email your representatives in the Arizona House and ask them to oppose both of these measures. Click on Save Our State Parks to send an email. To call from outside the Phoenix area, use the toll free number at 1-800-352-8404. In the Phoenix area call (602) 926-4221 (House). Ask them to connect you to your legislators’ offices. Remember calls can be very effective ways of reaching legislators.

Tell them to not to give away our state parks and destroy our state park system. Ask them to keep our parks public and funded via the dollars generated from fees and special funds. Parks protect cultural and natural areas and are important economic engines for rural Arizona.

Please also ask your representatives in the Arizona House to oppose the strike everything amendment on SB1517 (Melvin, Aboud: Antenori, et al). It deals with transmission lines; environmental compatibility certificates. All transmission lines that are

Here's the JLBC's breakdown of the impact HB 2636, the flat-tax proposal that will be under consideration in the Senate Finance Committee today. (You can read the entire JLBC analysis here.)

“It does create winners and losers,” says Karen McLaughlin of the Children's Action Alliance. "And most of the middle class and the lower class would be the losers. They’d be paying more in taxes and those at the high end of the income scale would be paying less.”

The CAA has run its own analysis of the flat-tax proposal. Here’s the result:

Requires that computation begins with a taxpayer’s federal adjusted gross income (FAGI) and the following adjustments:

a) add the amount in excess of $25,000 with respect to a FAGI election to expense certain depreciable business assets;

b) add the amount of depreciation allowance not previously added;

c) add the amount by which depreciation or amortization computed under the IRC exceeds the amount computed on the Arizona adjusted basis of the property with respect to tax credits taken for construction costs for qualified environmental technology facility, pollution control equipment, agricultural pollution control equipment or water conservation systems, respectively;

d) add any amount of agricultural water conservation expenses that were deducted pursuant to the IRC;

e) subtract interest income received on obligations of the United States deducted in the computation of FAGI;

f) subtract any amount included in FAGI relating to taxation of social security and railroad retirement benefits;

g) subtract the amount of allowable depreciation for property sold or otherwise disposed of under the IRC that has not already reduced Arizona taxable income in the current or prior taxable years;

h) subtract an amount equal to 1/5 of the allowable addition to an individual’s FAGI computation due to an election to expense certain depreciable business assets;

i) subtract unreimbursed employee trade or business expenses that are allowable as an itemized deduction on the taxpayer’s federal income tax return, subject to certain federal limitations governing miscellaneous itemized deductions and the disallowance of certain expenses, and not including any amount already subtracted in computing FAGI; and

j) subtract amounts that are allowable as an itemized deduction on the federal income tax return as damages from a judgment awarded to the taxpayer, but reduced by attorney fees and court costs.

Yeah, that makes everything easier. What the hell is wrong with these assclowns?