Facing a $500 million budget deficit this fiscal year, newly elected Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey released his proposed budget last month. While the budget addresses the deficit, Ducey’s plan to win short-term gains will hurt Arizona in the long run.
Ducey promises to “increase” funding for education by pumping in $135 million into classrooms, but when compared to his education cuts from kindergarten to postgraduate, our students will suffer a massive net loss under the governor’s proposals.
While Ducey’s $135 million seems generous, the cost is negated by the fact Ducey plans to cut between $113 million and $123 million from non-classroom education budgets, which cover things like transportation expenses, utility payments and administration overhead.
To cover costs for educating our children, from kindergarten to 12th grade, school districts will have to raise property taxes on their taxpayers or be forced to cut back on teacher salaries, infrastructure improvements and new programs to educate our youth. School districts already have to fight every few years for the outdated, pointless and overall ineffective budget override, which hamstrings schools from spending the full amount they lawfully collect from taxes.
Teacher salaries are already dismal in the state and according to the 2014 Rankings & Estimates report from the National Education Association, Arizona ranks dead last in per pupil funding, just $7,031, well below the national average of $11,308, less than half of the top 13 states in the country, and behind states like Mississippi [$8,880], Alabama [$9,581] and Arkansas [$9,696].
Additionally, Ducey plans to cut $75 million from Arizona’s three public universities, meaning they will have to raise tuition on incoming students in order to stay competitive.
Tuition at my alma mater, Arizona State University, has more than doubled since I graduated, but students leaving college now do not see double the salaries in Arizona’s job market after receiving their diplomas, leaving them with years more to pay off their student loans.
Ducey also plans to cut another $8.8 million from community colleges, meaning the “cheaper” alternatives to a four-year institution must offer fewer programs for working families, returning students and poorer Arizonans, negating in part the financial appeal of this form of higher education.
Ducey is also planning to cut $100 million from the Arizona Department of Commerce, whose efforts are aimed at training workers and attracting new businesses to the state.
The irony of Ducey’s attack on Arizona education budget is that the deficit he faces is in part due because a federal court ruled Arizona must pay schools $330 million in back tax revenue from inflation adjustments legislators and then-Gov. Jan Brewer refused to pay during the Great Recession — a ruling clearly benefiting our children that Ducey’s administration is still trying to fight in the courts.
Instead, Ducey is planning to spend $100 million on a new private prison that no one, not even “tough on crime” Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says the state needs. It would seem that if an Arizona taxpayer wants to benefit from Ducey’s budget, they should not yearn for a better education, they should just commit a felony instead.
