Schools, prisons, welfare seeking bigger slice of the pie

Regional News

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The state’s school superintendent is shooting for the moon. Diane Douglas wants $680 million more for K-12 education.

The head of Arizona’s biggest teacher union laments that districts are losing teachers to better-paying professions, and they need a salary hike to stop the hemorrhage. The price tag: undetermined.

The Department of Corrections says it’s getting difficult to recruit and retain officers, also because of low pay. Total cost, including other requests: $22 million.

As his top priority, Attorney General Mark Brnovich wants to wean his criminal division of dependence on money from seized assets, a practice that’s under fire. The bill for this alone: $10 million.

Welfare officers want funding certainty for caseload growth in adult services and for in-home care and community-based services for the aging population, as well as more dollars for folks in the developmental disability community. That list doesn’t end there. If they get every penny they asked for, it will cost the state $24 million.

Child safety officials seek a couple of million dollars for a critical database, funding for a “strategic pay package,” and more money for adoption subsidy. Again, their list doesn’t end there. The total for all the requests: $23 million.

That’s not counting the cost of another tax cut, something that Gov. Doug Ducey has promised to do each year while in office. That price is also undetermined.

All of that is only a slice of the fiscal pressure that lawmakers and the governor will have to bear this year.