I voted for Senator Al Melvin during the last election and he has really let me down. The last townhall he had he kept talking about education like it was obstacle that we needed to avoid in our state. I couldn’t believe it. Education is everything in our country and we are all lost without it. Seniors need to support the education of children as much as anyone since that generation will be charged with supporting us. Mr. Melvin will not have support next time.

– We all believe that the Arizona Constitution matters. Article 11, Section 10 states in part that our legislature “shall make such appropriations” as to provide for the “development and improvement” of our public schools. It does not say that we should ‘marginally support’ our schools or ‘pay for the education of our state citizens only when we can afford it’. Our first suggestion, therefore, is that our elected officials pay attention to their oath to uphold our Constitution. That may sound overly simplistic, but is our assessment that many legislators have lost sight of the basic foundation of their office.

– It is clear that tax structure in Arizona is in need of reform. The current budget proposal, however, is severely imbalanced and relies far too much on a single-sided approach to resolving our fiscal crisis. The structural tax issues in our state are more complicated to address, but that is what our legislators should have been working on this year instead of the current package of ideologically-appealing, lobbyist-pleasing budget items that fail to address the reality of our current situation (and fail miserably to support the ‘development and improvement’ of our public K-12 schools and universities). It’s time now to set that approach aside and start using relevant facts and statistics so we can extricate ourselves from this budget crisis.

– As debilitating as our budget crisis in now, the political gamesmanship in Phoenix has reached a point where it truly crippling our state. It is unproductive and the extreme partisan nature of our current legislature effectively means that millions of Arizona citizens have been effectively left without a voice in the budget process. We have watched with great dismay this year as legislative “leadership” has worked actively to exclude not only the ‘minority’ members, but other members of the majority party who have not fallen directly in line with the ideology of the moment.

Real, transformative leadership requires a level of credibility, commitment and the ability to critically examine complex issues. It is time for everyone in our government to pause, brush the sandbox off their pants, and start working together with a sense of urgency. No more 3am bills being passed without review. Time to stop passing blame.

We certainly welcome all input from the community on this matter. It is important to stress that ALL of our AEN website contributors are volunteers who are committed to working on this issue in addition to their normal workweek obligations. We jokingly say that we really put the ‘NON’ in non-profit since we are operating without funding or a research staff. We do aim, however, to be a “Do-Tank” instead of a mere “Think-tank” or loose collection of voters. Our membership is already large and is growing rapidly as people look to mobilize to improve our schools. If you haven’t done so already, we welcome you to join us to work towards a viable solution. (And yes, you can expect a more specific budget suggestions in the future!)

If I failed to answer your question to your satisfaction, please contact me via lisa@arizonaeducationnetwork.com. Many thanks!

1. Although our volunteers have not had access to the budget documents from the last bi-partisan budget meetings, it is our understanding that the budget proposal was similar to the Democrat’s FY2010 budget outline from May. You can view this on-line via the link we just added above the comment section. Please keep in mind that we are NOT endorsing this plan (especially given that we have not seen a comprehensive document) — we are merely pointing out that extensive work has already been done to formulate a budget that offers specific suggestions for alleviating the fiscal impact to our schools AND to address the entirety of our current $3 billion + budget deficit.

2. We have also paid close attention to documents such as the FACT report (which was released by Arizona’s university economists at the request of Senate President Robert Burns earlier this year); tax studies such as “Tax Law Changes in Arizona Since 1989 and the Impact on Government Revenues and Economic Growth” (etc.) and budgetary and policy recommendations from an array of resources including multi-state studies and items related to the “Race to the Top” program (Tough Choices, Tough Times, etc.). While we have not viewed a single document which provides the magic elixir to Arizona’s budget challenges, all of the above documents are relevant to our current situation and can serve to inform a more responsible, comprehensive and fiscally responsible budget than the one that is on the table today. I have added links to these documents in the main text above and you can find further information in our “Act Now” section on this website (under “Learn More About Possible Solutions”).

You wrote…

“The minority party had reportedly negotiated an alternative budget with a bi-partisan committee”

Do you have a link to or details on this minority party budget?

Does AEN have any direct suggestions on how to close the budget gap and support education at the same time?

Thanks!

I’m fed up. And I’m not alone.