Published: 05.29.2004
By Howard Fischer
CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES
| State budget for 2004-05 Here is a rundown of this year's budget. Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System - $858,454,800 Community colleges -$145,690,000 Department of Corrections -$609,535,700 Department of Economic Security - $597,193,200 * Department of Education -$3,183,787,600 Department of Environmental Quality - $22,844,700 Department of Health Services - $365,010,800 School Facilities Board -$78,587,100 Office of Tourism - $11,592,900 Universities - $770,924,300 Department of Water Resources - $13,875,300 All other agency budgets -$507,385,500 Pay raises - $44,014,900 Misc. special appropriations - $5,000,000 ** Maximizing federal funds - ($25,000,000) Total operating budget -$7,188,896,800 Set aside for ongoing lawsuit - $120,000,000 Administrative adjustments - $23,000,000 Revertments of unspent funds - ($51,169,300) School Fac. Board/deficiencies corrections - $75,000 Total spending -- $7,355,727,500 * Includes state aid to public schools ** Direction to executive to save money - Source: Joint Legislative Budget Committee |
PHOENIX - Gov. Janet Napolitano penned her approval Friday to a $7.36 billion
spending plan.
She used her line-item-veto power only twice in the 14-bill package, with no
apparent effect on the bottom line.
Big winners in the package include public education, especially the first-year
funding to begin providing full-day kindergarten to some youngsters. Universities
and community colleges also will get more cash.
There also are more dollars for state-subsidized child care. In fact, an extra
$5 million above what lawmakers approved is likely to be made available because
projected revenues for the coming year are exceeding expectations.
And state employees will get their first pay raises since 2002, with $1,000
across the board. But it may not work out quite that way for workers at state
universities, as lawmakers agreed to let each university president divide up
a lump sum equal to what otherwise would be due to employees.
One of Napolitano's vetoes concerned an effort by state lawmakers to permanently
adjust a formula used to provide cash for schools to set aside for major repairs.
That formula, enacted as part of a 1998 total revamp of school financing, relies
on a complex set of calculations based on factors ranging from the age of the
building to the number of square feet. Districts get the cash to set aside for
things like plumbing repairs, air conditioning and new roofs.
On paper, that requires the Legislature to come up with $134.9 million. But
for several years lawmakers have not fully funded the formula, in an effort
to balance the budget.
Legislators did the same thing this year, providing only $70 million.
Nothing in the governor's action changes that figure. But she vetoed other language
that would have altered the formula in perpetuity.
Schools actually may get more: There is another $40 million in the budget for
building renewal, contingent on state revenues exceeding forecasts.
Napolitano's other line-item veto was of legislative direction for the state
Parks Board to get $350,000 of its $16.5 million budget from the Land Conservation
Fund. She said that fund is designed to pay for conservation and preservation.
That veto does not affect the agency's bottom line, because it can take the
difference from the State Lake Improvement Fund.