By Jeremy Duda | Arizona Mirror
Gov. Doug Ducey rejected a Republican senator’s call to raise Arizona’s sales tax rate to provide more funding for education.
“We don’t need a tax increase. We’ve got available dollars right now. We’re going to have a nice, healthy, hearty debate about where we are going to invest and spend and save them,” Ducey told reporters on Friday after the Arizona Chamber of Commerce’s Legislative Forecast Luncheon.
State Sen. Sylvia Allen, R-Snowflake, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, turned heads with an op-ed in the Arizona Republic on Sunday proposing to raise a 0.6-percent sales tax that voters approved in 2000 as part of Proposition 301 to a full cent. Prop. 301 generates more than $600 million per year, and Allen’s proposal would increase that to around $1 billion annually, while redirecting some of the money to the university and community college systems.
