By Mary Jo Pitzl |Arizona Republic
Arizona school districts will avoid steep budget cuts that threatened to cripple the rest of the school year after the state Senate on Monday approved a resolution that raises the education spending cap.
RELATED: No Republican candidates for governor are calling for school cuts to be stopped
The 23-6 vote caps more than two months of public angst over the issue, and comes with just a week left before the required March 1 deadline.
Combined with last week’s approval in the House, Monday’s action means the schools can spend the $6.1 billion in their collective budgets that lawmakers approved last June. If lawmakers had rejected the increase, each school district would have to cut their budgets by 16%, or a combined $1.2 billion.
The vote was hard-won, as it took Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, a week to marshal the minimum 20 Senate votes needed to raise the constitutional spending cap.
Six Republicans voted against the move, complaining the public schools continuously demand more money even as the GOP-controlled Legislature has added billions in spending since recovering from the Great Recession.
“All we get is, ‘We need more,'” said Sen. Vince Leach, R-Saddlebrook, portraying the public schools and their advocates as ungrateful recipients of Republican-driven spending. He voted no.
Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale, echoed Leach’s frustrations.
“More money, more money,” she said.
≈
By Mary Jo Pitzl |Arizona Republic
Arizona school districts will avoid steep budget cuts that threatened to cripple the rest of the school year after the state Senate on Monday approved a resolution that raises the education spending cap.
RELATED: No Republican candidates for governor are calling for school cuts to be stopped
The 23-6 vote caps more than two months of public angst over the issue, and comes with just a week left before the required March 1 deadline.
Combined with last week’s approval in the House, Monday’s action means the schools can spend the $6.1 billion in their collective budgets that lawmakers approved last June. If lawmakers had rejected the increase, each school district would have to cut their budgets by 16%, or a combined $1.2 billion.
The vote was hard-won, as it took Senate President Karen Fann, R-Prescott, a week to marshal the minimum 20 Senate votes needed to raise the constitutional spending cap.
Six Republicans voted against the move, complaining the public schools continuously demand more money even as the GOP-controlled Legislature has added billions in spending since recovering from the Great Recession.
“All we get is, ‘We need more,'” said Sen. Vince Leach, R-Saddlebrook, portraying the public schools and their advocates as ungrateful recipients of Republican-driven spending. He voted no.
Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale, echoed Leach’s frustrations.
“More money, more money,” she said.
