Public Finance

There is a lot of misinformation being advanced about education funding through the misuse of statistics. I would like to straighten out a few things about what’s really been done to fund our schools and where Arizona ranks nationally in meaningful categories.

Steve Huffman is coming to the rescue of beleaguered taxpayers who pay the bills for the Tucson Unified School District - and TUSD is not happy about it. Huffman is a Republican who represents northwest Tucson in the state House. And he has introduced a bill that - if passed - will make it far more difficult for TUSD and 18 other Arizona school districts to increase taxes by virtually any amount with the public unable to do anything about it.

A graph charting population growth in Arizona bears an uncanny resemblance to the state’s highest mountain, Humphrey’s Peak — except that the graph climbs even more sharply. Just 10 years ago, Arizona had 3.6 million residents. In 2000, its population was up to 5.1 million. In times as good as the late 1990s, when every new citizen was seen as a source of new revenue — in the form of additional sales, income and property taxes — it was assumed that more people were a blessing.