Monday, February 22, 2021
Friday, February 19, 2021
PHOENIX – Public education advocates and leaders of the Arizona School Boards Association’s Black Alliance and Hispanic-Native American Indian Caucus gathered at the Arizona State Capitol on Thursday to protest a proposed voucher expansion initiative that they say would further defund public schools.
Senate Bill 1452, proposed by Sen. Paul Boyer, R-Glendale, would allow all children attending schools with a high percentage of low-income families or who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches to be eligible for the state’s empowerment scholarship account program. The proposed legislation was approved in a party-line vote 16-14 by on Monday, with Republicans voting in favor.
The current program, which serves 9,700 students, allows eligible parents to use state funding to pay for religious or other private education and education costs. Boyer’s bill would expand the program to serve a much larger group. More than 600,000 students receive free or reduced-price lunches in Arizona, the Governor’s Office has said.
Among those opposing the legislation were school board members, parents, superintendents, and other community members. Rather than routing money out of public schools, they argue the money should be used to help classrooms and neighborhoods where students live.
“A serious conversation about helping students begins from the premise that children be provided the tools they need in their own neighborhoods, easily accessible, without additional charges, or mandates to sign away one’s rights to antidiscrimination policies,” said Ann O’Brien, president of the Arizona School Boards Association’s executive board of directors. That, she continued, “is exactly what is required when a parent takes an ESA,” referring to empowerment scholarship accounts.
PHOENIX – A House committee has passed a Republican-sponsored bill that would allow Arizona business owners to decide whether to enforce mask mandates for employees and customers, a move supporters say promotes freedom and critics call a threat to health and safety.
“It’s a simple bill – it restores the freedom and the liberties back to the individual, and the individuals that own a business, to make their own decisions,” said newly elected Rep. Joseph Chaplik of Scottsdale, a sponsor of House Bill 2770.
The House Commerce Committee on Tuesday voted 6-4 along party lines in favor of the bill, which runs counter to many city and county government requirements to wear a mask to combat the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Gov. Doug Ducey has not issued a statewide mask requirement but last year allowed local governments to establish such rules.
Chaplik, who spoke while wearing a face shield, referred to emails of support he has received.
Thursday, February 18, 2021
County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry is asking the Pima County Board of Supervisors to suspend county-sponsored COVID-19 testing after notification that the state will not reimburse the county for most of its testing costs.
At a special board meeting Friday, Huckelberry said he'll ask the board to halt free coronavirus testing as of Feb. 22 to avoid incurring further deficit costs.
In a memo to the board, Huckelberry said the county reported to the state that $47.75 million was spent on PCR COVID-19 testing since April, with more than $10.68 million coming from county funds.
State officials said they could reimburse Pima County for only $1 million, according to an email from Eugene Livar, the chief of the epidemiology and disease control bureau at the Arizona Department of Health Services.
When the state submits its budget for federal approval in mid-March, Livar said ADHS can “reassess the funding available to support Pima County's testing needs,” but they likely won’t be able to “support the entirety of the $40,274,448 need but will likely be able to provide some level of support.”
While initially running the county’s testing operations under the assumption they would be partially covered by the $416 million provided to Arizona for testing through the 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act, Huckelberry wrote in the memo that the federal funds are “being used by the State for other purposes,” adding, “It appears the uses for which the State will be using these funds is for everything but COVID-19 testing.”
Pima County currently has several sites offering free COVID-19 testing through partnerships with Arizona State University, the City of Tucson, Accu Reference Labs and Paradigm Labs.
If the Board of Supervisors approves the motion Friday, the free testing will cease across the county.
“This is unfortunate as it was abundantly clear to Pima County that the State allocation was for COVID-19 testing,” Huckelberry wrote in the memo. “At least that was the impression we were left with in reviewing the Federal 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act.”
Editor's note: A earlier version of this story misstated the number of SNAP-eligible people who actually received the benefit in 2017. A Census Bureau report said that about one SNAP-eligible recipient in six did not get the benefit that year.
WASHINGTON – The number of food stamp recipients in Arizona has surged over the past year, but advocates worry that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is still only reaching a portion of those eligible for assistance.
A recent Census Bureau report found that one in six people who were eligible for SNAP in 2017 did not actually get the benefits. The participation was even lower in Arizona, where the bureau said that in 2018 almost 30% of SNAP-eligible people did not receive the benefit.
While the number of Arizonans getting SNAP benefits has spiked in the past year, advocates attribute that more to rising demand during the pandemic than to any narrowing of the gap between those deserving and those getting help.
“Some of the folks we are seeing enroll now are people who have been affected by the COVID pandemic, who have not had to take advantage of some of these programs in the past and are now engaging because they need that assistance to feed their families,” said Cynthia Zwick, executive director of Wildfire AZ, an anti-poverty organization.
Zwick and others fear that the same problems that kept eligible people from getting food stamps before may be challenging the COVID-19 newcomers to the system: confusing and burdensome paperwork, the stigma some feel and just a lack of knowledge about the program.
Wednesday, February 17, 2021
WASHINGTON – Health advocates welcomed the reopening of enrollment for Affordable Care Act coverage, saying the opportunity for more people to get or renew their health insurance could be “really good for Arizona.”
The normal period for Americans to sign up for coverage ended Dec. 15, but President Joe Biden called for this special 90-day open enrollment period in response to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.
The change could open the door to subsidized health insurance for thousands in Arizona, where as many as 900,000 people may not have health insurance, according to Dr. Dan Derksen, director of the University of Arizona Center for Rural Health. Derksen said as many as half of those people could get covered under the ACA.
“This extension of the open enrollment period Is a way that we can get more information out there so that people understand what they might be eligible for, and then get enrolled,” Derksen said Monday, the first day of open enrollment.
Matt Eyles, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, praised the decision to reopen the enrollment period as a “timely and targeted” solution that is “exactly what Americans need.”
“Every American deserves access to affordable health coverage and high-quality care, and that is especially true during a pandemic,” Eyles said in a written statement. “We appreciate the Biden administration for providing this additional opportunity for hardworking American families to enroll in coverage for their health and financial security as they continue to fight to overcome the COVID-19 crisis.”
