Arizona Senate Democratic Leader Priya Sundareshan graciously sat with Blog for Arizona to describe the latest on budget negotiations with Legislative Republicans and Governor Katie Hobb’s office.
What the Senator describes is a negotiating situation that is somewhat frustrating because Republicans, acting like strongmen, will not allow them in the room where the discussions are taking place. Furthermore, Republicans are welching on previously agreed upon funding deals on public education appropriations. They are also devoting two thirds of the surplus funding to themselves while leaving a third to Democrats who want to devote resources to reducing costs for all Arizonans. Finally, Republicans are ignoring the reality of the exploding ESA private school voucher programs on the budget, not even considering means testing to prevent wealthy voucher recipients from bilking the state taxpayer coffers.
It seems the only people Republicans want to reduce costs for are the wealthy.
Please read Senator Sundareshan’s responses below.
How goes negotiations with the Senate Republicans and the Governor’s office?
“Well, I believe that these negotiations (compared to what the House Republicans are doing) is the more serious one, and that’s the one that all of us, all our Democratic caucuses are paying much more close attention to. As with every budget negotiation that has been occurring, our caucus is frustrated that Republicans won’t let us be at the table during those negotiations and so part of the process is trying to constantly communicate with the Governor’s office. This how we share priorities, often with the Governor and where we might have some differences that need to get us to the resolution.”
Okay, if I may, a couple of policy questions related to those negotiations. The caucus Democrats Affordability Agenda. Can you say at this time, how much of that is going to make the final product?
“Well, you know, the Governor’s budget proposal in January did contain a significant amount of that Affordability Agenda. I would say there was a lot of good things in the Governor’s January budget proposal that would have really helped to lower costs for regular Arizonans. That includes Investments in childcare that would reduce the wait list that people are waiting for in order to access childcare. As I briefly told you, my kids are at daycare myself, so I know how expensive it is and how difficult it is to have that available to you so that you can get to work. There are so many investments in K-12 education that need to occur so that we have stronger public schools. These are the neighborhood public schools that serve the vast majority of Arizonans, and yet, unfortunately, the universal vouchers have really cut into the amount of available for public education for the rest of us. Now, over a billion dollars of money getting siphoned into the universal voucher program, and the more and more we learn, the more and more data that we’re able to get shows that the vast majority of that goes to private school tuition for the wealthiest Arizonans who never went to public school in the first place, and so it’s just everything we learn shows how that program is not supporting regular working class Arizonans and the Governor’s January budget proposal was funded off of some ESA reforms that would occur. And as we know, Republicans consistently refused to even contemplate even the most basic kinds of reforms to the voucher programs. This year, every single year, Democrats and the Governor have proposed a different type of ESA reform just to get Republicans to recognize the boondoggle that it is and put some just basic limits on it. This year, it was to cap the access to vouchers based on income at a sliding scale between what that income of a hundred thousand to two hundred thousand dollars and beyond $200,000. No access to that voucher program because you’re maybe wealthy enough to be able to cover that cost yourself and even modest limits, even modest steps in this budget negotiation, even to say, okay, let’s just go with the upwards of $200 000 income. This is the new report from the Grand Canyon Institute that I just was reading 350 million dollars costing the state that never existed before universal voucher expansion, which means these are people who never had their children attending public schools and that 350 million dollars is a Republican spending priority that we just go on as normal and then leaves whatever small amounts are left in the surplus to be to be divided up. That’s not even a surplus, because even last year’s budget made some cuts to public education that will not get funded unless we fund that from the one-time one time, as from the surplus money. That was the agreement that Republicans made with Democrats and the Governor last year that the budget would be done with a promise of the district additional assistance and the opportunity weights coming out of the baseline going into one time with the promise of that being funded one time, and yet this year, what we’re seeing Republicans say is, well, we’re not going to find that you should fund that out of anything else that might be your Democratic priority.”
So, with ESA reform off the table, how much of the Affordability Agenda is included in the budget?
“There may be some stuff there, but we don’t know yet. We are continuing to prioritize everything for the affordability agenda and supporting K-12 public education. Everything that working class Arizonans need and, and yet, the way that Republicans refuse to even consider minor reforms to, to various spending programs and priorities of their own, such as the Prescott Rodeo, means that there’s vanishingly small amounts to be able to put towards that affordability agenda. So, we continue to fight for that, but it is not clear how much we will be able to put forward towards that.”
How about water security?
“Water security is also in doubt. I will say, as you know, we’ve been working significantly on protection for rural groundwater. That’s not even a budget negotiation. That’s just legislation that could put some protections Arizona that has none at all, which leaves them open to exploitation by any corporate interest that wants to sink a deep well, and unfortunately, that seems to be dead, because negotiations have not occurred for two months. So, yeah, that won’t be part of the budget either. We are still hoping to to see if we can find agreement on some water legislation. If we find agreement, it will be because there will be enough guard rails to ensure that that we aren’t worsening our water security and opening it up to more uncertainty. So stay tuned. It’s not part of that’s not part of the budget process.”
I read something you said. I forgot where I saw it that the Governor’s team is playing a little hardball with the Democratic caucus in terms of vote gathering to see what you could deliver. Is that accurate?
“Somewhat? I mean, basically, we work with the Governor’s team to work towards shared priorities, and we know when we are talking to the Governor’s team that they are fighting for certain priorities that are shared amongst all Democrats. We are also frustrated that Republicans won’t let us in the room to also negotiate and provide support to the Governor’s team and provide that leverage, and so in some ways, this budget process lends itself to this disjointed way in which we don’t have the full picture as Senate Democrats, and so we’re able to meet with the Governor’s team and learn about how the negotiations with Republicans are proceeding, and when we can give input and we say, Senate Democrats actually have a have a real problem with this one piece, and so we need to continue to have that conversation and then Go forward with the Senate Republicans. It ends up being a little bit frustrating because of the process, because we’re not in the room right there to be able to react real time. That’s a little bit of the context of where that frustration has been showing.”
Do you feel these are fair negotiations? Do you feel maybe It would be better to tell Republicans to go to hell?
“I’m always happy to say that Republicans are always standing in the way of the clearer process towards these negotiations. It makes it really difficult when Republicans tell us that they don’t want to be negotiating with us in the room. There’s a couple of weeks until the end of this fiscal year. The path forward is proceeding and so, we make the best of it. We are working closely with the Governor’s team to make sure that we are in sync, given the way that Republicans have structured these negotiations for the last three years now.”
Discover more from Blog for Arizona
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.