Governor awaits word on federal stimulus money
Jessica Smith
Arizona lawmakers will have to restore nearly $160 million cut from higher education budgets earlier this year if the state wants to see a dime of the federal education stimulus money. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer officially applied for the state’s share of the federal money on March 5 but so far there is no official word as to whether or not Arizona has received the funds, or how they will be used.
According to a representative in the governor’s office, the state is still waiting for details from Washington as to the specifics of the stimulus package.
As soon as the details are known they will be posted on Brewer’s Office of Economic Recovery website at http://az.gov/recovery.
What does seem certain is that no one is willing to give up the stimulus money.
Even if Arizona has to backfill the $160 million in earlier cuts, they will do so because it means receiving nearly $800 million in much needed additional education funding.
As to where they will find this money, the state that is facing a $3.3 billion budget deficit, and it is difficult to tell.
Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, confirmed that Arizona will seek a waiver from Department of Education, which would excuse Arizona from having to restore the $160 million to universities and maintain K-12 funding at 2009 levels.
But for now Kavanagh, chairman of the Arizona House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, said, “We have to maintain 2008 [funding levels], and it looks like we’ll have to restore the university budget cuts, $160 million in 2009, and not take any additional ones in 2010.”
“It really doesn’t affect the community colleges, because we took virtually nothing from the community colleges in 2009. We only took $9 million statewide, which really was not even noticed by most colleges in terms of their share,” he said.
Additional budget cuts to the Arizona Department of Education are expected for 2010, currently proposed at $329,578,800.
Whether or not these will make it though the draft phase of the budget remains to be seen as new federal rules regarding state compliance with certain funding levels emerge, not to mention the difficulty a slash like this to education funding will have gaining majority support in both houses.
According to Kavanagh, $8 million in cuts statewide would come from community colleges in 2010, “which is really almost a rounding error in Maricopa’s budget. It wouldn’t have any impact at all,” he said.
