Fast Facts from AZ Department of Education

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about the legislature and budgets but I think it is important to note some fast facts.  Our facts today come from the AZ Department of Education and they are worth noting:

ADM went from 859,023 in 2004 to 951,117 in 2008.   This is an INCREASE OF 10.7%.

Number of Administrators went from 2,804 in 2004 to 3,305 in 2008.  This is an INCREASE OF 17.9%.

Number of Classified Managers went from 2,374 in 2004 to 3,030 in 2008.  This is an INCREASE OF  27.6%.

Number of Teachers went from 47,396 in 2004 to 53,883 in 2008.  This is an INCREASE OF 13.7%.

Average Teacher salary went from $42,324 in 2004 to $49,331 in 2008.  This is an INCREASE OF 16.5%.

Superintendents salaries went from $12,837,427 in 2004 to $19,188,361 in 2008.  This is an INCREASE OF 49.5%.

Total state aid went from $3,179,994,562 in 2004 to $4,453,747,156 in 2008.  This is an INCREASE OF 40%.

Based on this information from the Arizona Department of Education, it appears that those areas that saw the biggest increases were in administration not the classroom despite the dramatic increase of state aid.  Sometimes the facts just speak for themselves.

Thursday News Stories

Here are the news stories that we are following today.  Please, if we have missed one, let us know!  Commentary will arrive later today.

Arizona Daily Star

§  County officials foresee tax increase

§  AZ sales tax collections declined again in March

§  Montana set to challenge gun control

§  Charter change would tie officials’ hands

§  Catalina Foothills crisis is rooted at Legislature

 

Arizona Daily Sun

§  City layoffs down to a dozen
In the end, it will be an even dozen. That’s how many Flagstaff city employees are likely to be laid off starting July 1, City Manager Kevin Burke said Wednesday. 

§  FUSD readies budget override
Flagstaff Unified School District officials are taking the first steps toward putting a budget override on this fall’s ballot.

 

§  Maricopa Co. checking its take-home fleet
PHOENIX (AP) — In these tough economic times, Maricopa County is assessing the need for taking a county-owned car home.

 

Arizona Republic

§  State treasurer sheds light on Ariz.’s loans

Arizona’s first foray in borrowing in its modern history cost just over $38,500 in interest, state Treasurer Dean Martin reports. He warned that more borrowing is on the horizon as the state grapples with budget shortfalls.

§  Bennett unsold on Gov. Brewer’s tax plan

Secretary of State Ken Bennett, whom Brewer appointed to his current job, parted company with his patron on the tax-increase issue, saying he could not swallow a central piece of the governor’s plan to address a $3 billion budget shortfall for 2010.

§  One U.S. agency didn’t get memo about openness

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has ignored repeated requests from The Arizona Republic for information about sexual assaults. The BIA needs to release its investigative records and save time, taxpayer dollars and embarrassment.

§  Group challenges state to ‘expect more’

To combat the quite-real perception that too many Arizonans are indifferent to quality education, a business-education-philanthropic coalition has launched ”Expect More Arizona,” a campaign to entice the state’s students and parents to raise their performance expectations.

 

The Daily Courier

§  Cities worry about state plans for local impact fees 

§  State water agency faces 56-percent cut

 

East Valley Tribune

§  Ariz. Democrats assail Republicans over flu

House Democrats are trying to make political hay out of the swine flu outbreak, saying Republican budget cuts have left Arizonans more at risk.

 

Phoenix Business Journal

§  ADOT gets first stimulus money

The Arizona Department of Transportation is one of the first state agencies to start awarding contracts with stimulus money. The Phoenix Business Journal will have extended coverage of the stimulus efforts and the economy starting in this week’s edition.

 

Sierra Vista Herald

§  Fort gets more stimulus money

FORT HUACHUCA — More than $4.5 million of federal economic recovery funds have been approved for eight construction projects aimed at making the fort more energy efficient, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ office said Wednesday.

Judge Shows That Some Workers Are NOT More Equal Than Others

 

There was an important article in today’s East Valley Tribune about the recent layoffs of government employees because of the severe financial constraints that we are experiencing.  Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Andrew Klein ruled on Monday that the union request to reinstate workers let go due to the state financial issues and to halt future layoffs has been denied allowing for the firings to stand and the layoffs — should they be necessary — to continue.

Klein, in his opinion said that the agencies “did their best to make informed, good faith decisions as to which employees had to be let go.’’  According to the article, this does not resolve the issue as there is still litigation that is ongoing to test whether the firings were legal.

However, the biggest news of this article was not necessarily the decision of the court but that the true intentions of the union appeared.  The state director of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Scott Washburn had this to say after the ruling when asked about the union’s next move:

“We don’t have a friend in the governor, we don’t have friends in the Legislature,’’ he said. Washburn said the ultimate solution would be to “change the political makeup’’ of state government.

“The people that are running it now are ideologically opposed to government,’’ Washburn said. “And the people that we represent work for government.’’

The dirty little secret is what is buried within this comment.  To SEIU, this is about growing big government, growing the number of members to their union, and ultimately growing the amount of money and power of the SEIU.  This had little to do with what is best for Arizona taxpayers who are stuck footing the bill.

In his comments, we also see what the intended plan is for 2010 election cycle.  The governor and the legislature are now in the crosshairs of the unions who will do everything that they can to steal away the power from the taxpayers and the elected officials that we put in office so that the SEIU can pad their pockets with more union dues and big government jobs.  It is up to us to maintain our pressure and beat back the unions from getting established within Arizona state government.

Tuesday News Stories

Here are the top stories that we are following from newspapers across Arizona.  If we missed one, let us know!

 

AZ Daily Star

·         Lower tax, few cuts in county budget

 

·         GOP plan would take money from cities, school districts

 

 

AZ Daily Sun

·         Tea Party message: Hold bailouts, stimulus accountable
It’s been nearly two weeks since the Flagstaff Tea Party, and still our Web site is buzzing with comments. As of yesterday, the posted story, “Mad about more than taxes,” had nearly three times as many comments as any other story in the past month.

 

 

AZ Republic

·         GOP leaders outline plan to fix state’s budget hole

GOP leaders’ budget plan uses nearly $1 billion in federal assistance, trims an additional $670 million in state spending and claims a half-billion more from cities and school districts

 

 

EV Tribune

·         Judge allows state worker layoffs to stand

A judge has refused a union request to reinstate fired state workers and restrict how future layoffs can take place.

 

·         GOP lawmakers propose taking impact fees

Republican legislative leaders are proposing to fix part of their budget problems by taking $210 million that cities have…

 

Arizona Receives Failing Grade on FOI Requests

It came as no surprise to me when I read the headline “76% of States Fail at FOI Responsiveness” and saw where Arizona ranked in the policy report.  The Better Government Association, a self-described independent, non-partisan government watchdog group committed to fighting waste, corruption and inefficiency in government, released a study at the end of 2008 ranking all of the states according to their Freedom of Information laws and responsiveness.

The conductors of the study defined benchmarks upon which each state would be measured in an objective and accurate manner:

• How long it took for a response
• What remedies were in place to appeal decisions of denial
• What opportunities of expediency are there for the court to review an appeal due to time constraints
• What are the penalties to government agencies for violating the laws for denial of access to public documents — covering attorney’s fees and costs to sanctions.

Here are the results of the study and notice where Arizona ranks.  Yes, you read that correctly.  We are near the bottom of the list in a very dark basement garnering only 22% out of 100% in satisfying the criteria.

Now, you may be asking yourself, why would you post an old article (from 2008) about transparency and FOI requests.  Well, I will give you the first reason — NOTHING has changed in the FOI laws since this study has been released.

The second reason is tied directly to one of our projects on government contracts.  In February, we sent FOI requests to 10 government agencies requesting information on their contracting practices and to determine the contracts each government agencies have.  Specifically, we asked for a list of all recent government contracts with the following information: whether contract was open bid or sole source, who the vendor was, how much the contract was for and what goods or services the vendor was providing.

Let me give you an update.  We are still  waiting for all of the responses to come back nearly two months later.  We understand that budget cuts and the loss of personnel have dramatically influenced getting work done.  If we lost a staff member, we would certainly feel it around here.  The only problem with that line of thinking is that departments and agencies have entire divisions devoted solely to financial record keeping whether we are talking about accounts receivable or accounts payable.  Furthermore, our request in and of itself was not intricate but rather straightforward — you spend money, show me where. 

As we wait, patiently as we can, for the remaining agencies to supply the simple data we have requested, we can’t help but think that this study echoes a real problem for all taxpayers. Freedom of Information laws must have a reasonable response timer in place here in Arizona, not only because of the transparency and accountability to the taxpayers, but also because it will provide a very bright light out of the very dark basement of where our state ranks nationally.