Education Finance

"Public policy development through the courtroom rarely works out well," McCarthy said. "I think what he's done more often than not is create chaos. Tim drops bombs on the Legislature. At the end of the Students First fight, he was taking schools to a place they didn't want to go. He essentially ran them off the cliff."

“We are going to make that a temporary tax because we believe you just cannot fall back on extending taxes (or) increasing taxes to justify the spending of money we don’t have,” incoming Senate President Steve Pierce said at last month’s legislative outlook conference sponsored by the Arizona Tax Research Association.

The Maricopa County Community College District governing board will decide Tuesday whether to raise the property tax to help offset a steep decline in state aid. The 10-college system is proposing a $1.4 billion budget for 2011-12, which includes a 3 percent increase in the property-tax levy. The board's vote will follow a public hearing.

TUCSON, AZ (KOLD) - Arizona's new budget is hitting a lot more high school students in Pima County. The state is making, what is being called a devastating budget cut, to JTED, the Joint Technical Education District. That is the voter-approved high school career and technical education program that serves some 24,000 high school students in Pima County. Career and technical education in Pima County isn't the old shop class you might be used to.