Gov. Doug Ducey (center), with Senate President Andy Biggs (left) and House Speaker David Gowan, Jan. 16, 2015.Arizona's three state universities would lose another $75 million in state funding next fiscal year under Gov. Doug Ducey's budget proposal released Friday.
Ducey proposed a $9.09 billion budget, which is $210 million, or 2.2 percent lower than the current budget.
Before that budget kicks in, however, the state must balance its current budget, which the Joint Legislative Budget Committee projected Friday will finish $148 million in the red. To cover it, the governor proposed drawing $125.7 million from the state's "rainy day" fund and reducing $27.9 million in Medicaid and Department of Economic Security funding.
The "rainy day" fund had a balance of $464 million as of Friday, a state report said.
The proposed 2015-16 budget would be balanced on the cut to universities and another $8.8 million cut to community colleges, assuming that the state won't owe K-12 public schools the $331 million a judge says it does, Ducey's already announced state hiring freeze, a 3 percent cut to Medicaid providers to save $24 million and shifting $12 million of juvenile incarceration costs to counties.
The universities lost nearly $400 million in state aid between 2008 and 2013 and made up for it with steep tuition increases.
The governor proposed a net increase of $11 million in K-12 spending, with a shift of $113.5 million from administration to classrooms.
He also proposed spending $5.3 million for new prison beds, $4.8 million more for prison health care
Before the budget was introduced, Ducey held a news conference at which he said his proposed budget "protects taxpayers and protects classrooms" and would require sacrifice in other areas.
"I will govern under a classrooms first initiative, and this budget reflects that priority," Ducey said in a statement released by his office. "It also protects taxpayers by rejecting calls to raise taxes."
The classroom reference was to the Republican governor's comments in his State of the State speech Monday that he wants money shifted from administrative expenses to classrooms in public schools. He said 55 percent of state money is spent in classrooms, six points below the national average.
The state Auditor General's Office confirms that figure in its 2013 report and says administrative costs in Arizona schools averaged 10 percent, lower than the national average of 10.7 percent. The rest, 35 percent, went to support services, including buses, librarians, school nurses, counselors, food service and heating, cooling and maintaining school buildings, the Arizona Capitol Times reported.
A big stumbling block in state budgeting this year is the continuing sluggish economy and the possibility of a court-ordered state payout to public schools for inflation adjustments not made during the recession.
The Joint Legislative Budget Committee's last analysis, issued Friday, showed the budget deficit would be $148 million by the end of this fiscal year and $678 million in the next fiscal year. The K-12 inflation payments would increase those deficits to $520 million for this year and $1 billion for the fiscal year starting in July, the analysis showed.
Members of the Arizona Board of Regents and officials from the state universities were scheduled to comment on the budget proposal at a 4 p.m. MST conference Friday.
By submitting your comments, you hereby give AZPM the right to post your comments and potentially use them in any other form of media operated by this institution.