Many lawmakers cool to conservat

Many lawmakers cool to conservatives' effort to restrict spending

By PAUL DAVENPORT
The Associated Press
Tucson, Arizona
March 20, 2006


Efforts at the Arizona Legislature to pull in the state's fiscal reins over the long haul are producing more notable stumbles than successes so far this session.
Republican conservatives who objected to many of the tactics used to balance the budget when the recession crimped state revenue and spending earlier this decade have proposed dozens of changes, some major and some minor, that they say would help make the state live within its means and keep more dollars in taxpayers' pockets.
"We need to get things back in line," said Sen. Karen Johnson, R-Mesa.
However, many of the proposals face opposition from interest groups which fear they would lock out spending for underfunded programs they support. Others are opposed by lawmakers who don't want to tie their own hands by taking budget-balancing options off the table .
"I don't want to be in a position where you might as well send a robot down here," said Sen. Robert Cannell, D-Yuma.
In separate votes Thursday, for example, the House and the Senate each rejected a proposed constitutional amendment to provide new muscle to the Arizona Constitution's existing requirement for a balanced budget. Democrats joined some Republicans to overcome GOP supporters in each chamber.
If it had been placed on the ballot and approved by voters, the measure would have required the state to end each fiscal year with an unspent reserve equal to at least 1 percent of the total budget, spending for the state's operations stay within permanent state revenue and that no spending commitments be deferred to future years.
Those all reflect tactics or situations that came into play during the hard times when the state raided special accounts, deferred spending obligations into future years and borrowed money to help pay operating expense.
"This is essentially cash accounting," the Senate version's sponsor, Republican Sen. Dean Martin of Phoenix, said during an earlier caucus when Republicans discussed the measure. "We've been treated one-time revenue as permanent."
Fellow Republican Barbara Leff voted for Senate version of the proposed referendum (SCR1027) Thursday but previously expressed views held by many other lawmakers.
It's the Legislature's job to decide priorities during hard times, Leff said. "Do we really want to tie our hands over and over and over?"
Rep. Andy Biggs, a Gilbert Republican who sponsored numerous bills developed by a session working group of fiscal hawks, said fellow lawmakers should be more concerned about whether they're tying their hands by starting or expanding programs that lack assured funding.
Otherwise, lawmakers could be stuck "either trying to swipe someone else's money or cutting the program," he said. "I'm not sure everybody is weighing that in the long term."
Some bills supported by Biggs and others are still advancing in the Legislature. They include ones to require legislative approval of more lawsuit settlements, new reporting of the state's cash receipts, advance notice of requests for federal funding and possible rollbacks of fees charged by state agencies.
Many other measures have apparently fallen by the wayside.
Rep. Russell Pearce's resolution for a constitutional amendment to largely limit state spending increases to population and inflation adjustments last was heard from in early February when it limped out of a House committee.
Modeled after Colorado's controversial Taxpayer Bill of Rights - part of which Colorado voters suspended last year - the proposed referendum was criticized even by the head of a business-backed taxpayer organization who backs many other proposed fiscal changes.
"We think you ought to maintain the flexibility to make spending decisions every year," said the Arizona Tax Research Association's Kevin McCarthy.
Proposals such as TABOR are wrongheaded because the Arizona Legislature has a track record of both avoiding profligate spending during good times and making deep budget cuts during hard times, said Sen. Robert Cannell, D-Yuma.
"The budget is the key thing we do here and it seems like these kind of bills are going to limit our ability within the budget to achieve positive things for the state," said Cannell, citing initiatives like all-day kindergarten and the new medical school campus in Phoenix.