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Gov. Doug Ducey Thursday signed the state budget for 2015-16, putting into effect a $9.1 billion spending plan that is 2.2 percent lower than this year's budget.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey.
Ducey, a Republican in his third month as governor, hailed the budget as balanced and fair to taxpayers because he kept his campaign pledge not to increase taxes. He said it protects K-12 education, maintains public safety and provides for child welfare.
Even as Ducey signed the budget, protests over cuts in it continued. Students at Tucson High Magnet School assembled to discuss the budget's effect on education, and at the University of Arizona students protested cuts totaling $99 million to the state's three universities.
Southern Arizona Democrats also read resolutions from local school districts on the floor of the Arizona House. The messages to the Legislature from the Sunnyside and Tucson Unified School District governing boards condemned the budget cuts to K-12 administration.
Board of Regents President Mark Killian, a former state legislator, said he was asking the regents to look into the possibility of suing the state over the budget as being a violation of the Arizona Constitution, which calls for a college education to be "as free as possible."
Republican legislators who voted for the budget defended it as being the best the state can do under current revenue and economic realities. They and Ducey said economic growth should drive Arizona to a better fiscal position in the near future.
Ducey has called the budget "bipartisan," despite the fact that all Democratic lawmakers except one voted against it. It passed 16-13 in the Senate, with one Democrat voting for it and one Republican voting against it. The House vote was 32-27, with all yes votes coming from Republicans. All 24 Democrats voted no and were joined by three Republicans.
Read the full text of Gov. Ducey's prepared statement:
"This is the job Arizonans hired us for, and I'm proud we were able to get it done in a responsible, swift and bipartisan manner.
"This budget reflects the priorities I ran on and addresses the problems I was elected to solve. It restores much-needed fiscal responsibility to government by forcing the state to live within its means and stop spending money it doesn't have. It prioritizes education, with nearly half our overall budget going toward K-12 and universities. It protects classrooms, child safety, public safety and our most vulnerable populations. And it does all of this without raising taxes on the citizens of Arizona. I'm grateful for the Legislature's efforts to get this done, and done right."
Read the Arizona Joint Legislative Budget Committee's summary of the budget here.
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