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Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Arizona House GOP passes budget alone as Democrats boycott vote
Photo via Facebook Republicans in Arizona's House of Representatives passed their package of state budget bills the same way they were created: alone. The majority party, which holds 33 of the chamber's 60 seats, approved each of the 15 pieces of legislation that make up their budget proposal by a vote of 31-0 Friday night, long after all Democratic lawmakers had headed home after a day of waiting around for Republicans to bring the bills to the floor for debate. Creation of the state's annual budget is usually a collaborative effort among the Republican majorities that control the House and Senate and Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat. But this year, House Republicans created their own state budget plan, divorced from ongoing budget negotiations between Hobbs and Senate Republicans. Legislative Democrats panned House Republicans' budget tactics as a 'farce' and Hobbs described the plan as 'dead-on-arrival' because of inadequate funding for K-12 schools, millions in cuts to Medicaid and a failure to fund her childcare affordability initiative. Hobbs and Senate Republicans plan to introduce their own budget Monday following weeks of negotiations. House GOP leaders had been involved in those negotiations, but walked away several weeks ago. House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Livingston, along with Rep. Matt Gress, a former budget director for Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, were the chief architects of their chamber's budget proposal. Gress, a Phoenix Republican, responded Friday to criticisms of the way the budgeting process unfolded. 'This was a key procedural step that we had to take, it really was,' Gress said. 'We've had to do it in order to get the language that House members wanted to present to the Senate as they take up their legislation next week.' Gress said that he'd seen the Senate's plan, and even though he and Livingston didn't work with Senate leaders or Hobbs, he described the two plans as 'eerily similar.' 'We all ended up focusing in on the things that matter, for the most part,' Gress said, admitting that the House's plan was more conservative than the Senate's. The House's $17.3 billion plan includes a 5% pay raise for Department of Public safety and correctional officers and $94 million to fund infrastructure and road improvements, including I-10 and Highway 347. It also includes a 2.5% tuition reduction followed by a three-year freeze for Arizonans who attend the state's public institutions, and it continues to fund the Division of Developmental Disabilities and its Parents as Paid Caregivers Program that was at the center of a bitter fight for funding earlier this year. The House budget plan was just introduced publicly in the late afternoon of June 11, and GOP lawmakers worked long hours on Friday to negotiate amendments to get all Republicans on board since there was no chance of getting any votes from Democrats. One significant amendment to House Bill 2947 approved Friday evening would give more control to country recorders when it comes to funding and oversight of elections. Some of the changes are clearly aimed at tipping the scale in an ongoing feud between the Republican-controlled Maricopa Board of Supervisors and Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap. Heap, a former state representative and member of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus, has been battling the board over election administration duties basically since he took office in January. Election duties in Maricopa are split between the board and recorder. This week, Heap sued the board of supervisors claiming they 'engaged in an unlawful attempt to seize near-total control over the administration of elections,' Votebeat reported. Through his lawsuit, Heap seeks to control the information technology staff that manages the Maricopa County voter registration system. In a statement, Supervisor Kate Brophy McGee called the lawsuit absurd, describing it as an 'example of the Recorder's irresponsible and juvenile ready-fire-aim approach to governance.' The House Republican budget would distribute $4 million in funds directly to the Maricopa County Recorder's Office, instead of the board, and would prohibit the board from having any say in how the funds are spent. It would require the recorder to use some of those funds to hire information technology staff and for the recorder to control all IT equipment used in his duties. Rep. Alex Kolodin, a Scottsdale Republican and Freedom Caucus member, praised the election oversight measures in the House budget, saying it was important to the caucus that those be included. Kolodin, who is an attorney, was sanctioned by the State Bar of Arizona and placed on probation in 2023 for his role in lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election, including the infamous 'kraken' lawsuit that made implausible and evidence-free claims of massive election fraud. While Gress focused on the similarities between the Senate budget plan and the one in the House, Kolodin's outlook was more cynical. 'This budget process has obviously been very fractious, between the House that is pushing for a Republican budget that befits the Republican majority the people of Arizona elected, and some of our colleagues in the (executive) tower, and across the courtyard (in the Senate) that may be having different ideas.' But Kolodin said he was pleased to see that everyone involved, including Hobbs, were on the same page about putting $1 million toward legal funding for the state's upcoming fight for its share of Colorado River water. Not all Republicans were totally pleased with the outcome, with Rep. Justin Olson, of Mesa, saying he was only on board with the level of spending in the budget because he'd been promised that a separate bill would be introduced next week to cut spending by more than $100 million. Rep. Teresa Martinez, of Casa Grande, said she voted for the budget bill reluctantly, 'with caution and regret,' as she's worried some of the provisions will hurt rural hospitals. But as House Republicans celebrated the passage of their proposal, and criticized Democratic lawmakers for their absence from the chamber Friday night, Gress said he was hopeful that the Senate, House and Hobbs could come to a budget agreement next week. He urged Senate Republicans to work off of the House's proposal next week, instead of the one they have negotiated with the governor. 'I think that, ultimately, the minds melded across the capitol to produce almost a virtually identical budget,' he said, claiming that 85% of the House's proposal would end up in the final product. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Forbes
31-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Education Department Budget Request Includes Massive Cuts
Just adding a little flexibility here. The 2026 budget request for the U.S. Department of Education has been released, and it follows through on President Donald Trump's promise of deep cuts for a department marked for elimination. The budget summary begins by quoting a portion of Trump's speech from his signing of the executive order calling for the elimination of the department. 'But we're going to be returning education very simply back to the states where it belongs,' he promised. The proposed budget seems to indicate that not only will states get more responsibility for education, but additional costs as well. Per Trump's promise, the proposal leaves Title I (support for schools with low income students) and IDEA (funding for students with special needs) intact. But billions of dollars for other programs have been slashed. The budget proposes a new item, the K-12 Simplified Funding Program, which 'would consolidate eighteen currently funded formula and competitive grant programs for elementary and secondary education into a single State formula grant program.' The stated goal is to eliminate 'siloes and bureaucratic red tape," however it appears to eliminate more than that. The K-12 SFP funding request is for $2 billion. The 2024 levels of combined funding for the 18 programs folded into K-12 SFP is over $6.5 billion. The consolidation comes with a $4.5 billion funding cut. One program alone, aimed at supporting effective instruction, was previously funded at $2.19 billion. Other programs to be combined into the K-12 SFP include programs for addressing literacy, supporting at-risk youth, arts in education, and American history and civics education. Community learning centers and rural education supports would also be lumped in. The federal government previously provided $380 million to help fund state assessments; that would also be part of the K-12 SFP. The budget request repeatedly notes that this combining of programs would give the states flexibility and 'discretion to support any activity that was previously allowed' under the previous program, but states will need a great deal of flexibility to make up for a $4.5 billion cut in funding for these programs. I have emailed the department for clarification of what certainly appears to be a cut on top of the consolidation and will add their reply if it arrives. Additionally, there are ten more programs under elementary and secondary education that have been cut entirely. Elimination of teacher-supporting grant programs like the Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) program and teacher and school leader incentive grants were explained with the line, 'Elimination of this program is part of the Administration's overall effort to restore fiscal discipline and reduce the Federal role in education.' The grants used by states to help with migrant education were likewise eliminated. Others, like Full Service Community Schools grants were eliminated with the note, 'States and localities, not the Federal government, are best suited to determine whether to support the activities authorized under this program or similar activities within their own budgets and without unnecessary administrative burden imposed by the Federal government.' English Language Acquisition, am $890 million program to support students learning English as a new language, was also cut with this language. In other words, if states think they want to do it, they can budget the funds themselves. Those eliminated programs represent another $1.1 billion in cuts. Meanwhile, the Charter Schools Program, with its history of fraud and waste, will get an additional $60 million. The IDEA grant funding is actually increased by around $650 million, but the budget request also consolidates other grant programs into the IDEA grants for state. Those additional programs account for the increase in IDEA funding, but it will apparently be up to states whether to use the funds that way. While the request keeps Career and Technical Education fairly steady, with a $2.3 million drop in national programs. However, the $729 million for adult education is eliminated entirely ("States and localities, not the Federal government, are best suited etc…") Beyond the K-12 funding, there are other cuts in the proposal. International Education and Foreign Language Studies are zeroed out because 'these programs are inconsistent with Administration priorities and do not advance American interests or values.' The Federal TRIO Program, a program aimed at providing college outreach and support to individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, is eliminated. The Teacher Quality Partnership, aimed at boosting the teacher pipeline and adding diversity to the teacher pool, is also eliminated. Everything under the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the research wing of the department, is an asterisk until the administration is done 'reimagining a more efficient, effective, and useful IES.' However, the funding for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the test that measures how U.S. students are doing, is still there, albeit reduced from $193 million to $137 million. The salary request for the department moves from the 2025 figure of $2.769 billion to $2.514 billion (with IES still undetermined) even though personnel has been cut from 4,099 in 2024 to a projected 2,179 (though there are still personnel issues to be sorted out in court). The Office of Civil Rights would be cut from $140 million to $63 million. Unlike her predecessor Betsy DeVos, Education Secretary Linda McMahon did not request that Special Olympics funding be cut. This is a budget request, likely to be debated and revised and kicked around the halls of Congress before its done. This proposal is a far cry from actually eliminating the department, but it would certainly undercut the states' ability to support their students.
