Sen. Manuel Alvarez (D-LD25) on the state budget

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Daily Star's series continues today with Sen. Manuel Alvarez (D-LD25). Formatted for transcript format. Sen. Manuel V. Alvarez, D, District 25

Sen. Manuel V. Alvarez, D-LD25

Committees: Public Safety and Human Services (Ranking Demo-cratic member); Veterans and Military Affairs (Ranking Democratic member); Government Institutions

The Arizona Daily Star asked the following questions of each lawmaker:

1) Lawmakers have discretion over only 37 percent of K-12 education. School districts and universities have already taken millions in budget cuts, which affects everything from the economy to demands on government programs.

Should lawmakers continue to cut money to education? What, specifically, would you do?

A: It is the state's duty to make sure the public education system works for our children. Cutting back on programs like all-day kindergarten only puts Arizona's children at a disadvantage when compared to other states and shifts costs to families who have already tightened their budgets. Educational surveys consistently place Arizona at or near the bottom of the charts for performance and funding. It is past time that we do something to change that. Cutting back on educational funding is not the way to make sure Arizona's children can compete for high paying jobs once they go into the work force.

2) The governor's budget includes $37 million in cuts to services for the seriously mentally ill and the elimination of KidsCare, for a savings of $23 million. It also seeks to ask voters to drop 310,500 people from Medicaid by narrowing the eligibility rules.

That savings would be $382 million. Do you support these cuts? If not, how would you cover that $442 million budget gap?

A: In Arizona, 1.3 million people are served by AHCCCS, the state Medicaid program. These are working families living at the federal poverty limit, with many being children. The governor's proposal would eliminate coverage for 300,000 or more from AHCCCS, 47,000 children from KidsCare and 17,000 from mental-health coverage. This is not only a cut to people at the worst time in the state's economic history, but it is a cost shift to community health-care providers. For each dollar cut from AHCCCS, the state also loses two more dollars from federal matching funds, so we actually lose much more.

Additionally, cutting hundreds of thousands of people from health care will mean that people will defer medical care until they are very ill and then go to the emergency room as a last resort. This practice is unhealthy for the individual and community and a very expensive cost that is not recouped by community health-care providers that are already strained.

3) What is your priority for budget cuts? What, specifically, would you cut first, and why?

A: Mathematically, there is zero way to cut ourselves out of this budget deficit. The majority of the state budget goes to education, corrections and health care. At this point, many smaller state departments are working with bare-bones budgets – the same agencies we depend on to help protect us from consumer fraud. The state has lost over 4,000 jobs over the past two years from layoffs and a hiring freeze, which is 10 percent of the work force. We have lost even more in the private sector as a result of lost contracts.

While I am happy that the governor intends to use $10 million of federal stimulus for job training, it is only a temporary fix.

Republican budgets have already made permanent cuts to the Department of Commerce – the agency that runs job training. That means that when the stimulus dollars run out, there will be a permanent gap in funding for these programs.

4) What kind of revenue increases do you support?

A: The state needs to look at additional revenue, but I believe that the voters need to decide for themselves whether to increase that revenue. The proposals we have seen so far only tie Arizona to future tax cuts. Democrats are not against tax cuts and incentives for companies to bring high paying jobs, but we cannot pre-plan tax cuts when we are not even certain when Arizona will fully recover from the current downturn.