Arizona lawmakers spar over education funding plan

PHOENIX — Democrat and Republican party leaders had their first skirmish of the year Wednesday even though the legislative session doesn’t actually start until next week.

And the fight, perhaps predictably, is about money.

During an appearance at a Chamber of Commerce event, House Minority Leader Eric Meyer noted that voters are being asked to approve Proposition 123 at a special election in May. It would put an additional $3.5 billion into K-12 education for the next decade.

“Prop. 123 when it passes will move Arizona from 49th in per-pupil funding to 49th,” Meyer said, citing Arizona’s ranking against other states.

Meyer said the state ended the last fiscal year with $325 million in the bank. And with less than half of the current budget year gone, revenues already are running more than $200 million above projections.

That money, Meyer said, should be used to reverse some of the cuts made in education funding in the prior seven years.

The suggestion drew a sharp response from Senate President Andy Biggs.

“When your mantra is repeatedly ‘Not enough money,’ that money solves all problems, then you get kind of wrapped around the axle,” he said.

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Biggs chided Meyer and other Democrats for voting last year to increase aid to schools but against the specific plan in Proposition 123 to tap an existing education trust fund account.

But the Senate president said even if that were not the case, the argument by Democrats is flawed.

He said it’s wrong to rely the data from the U.S. Census Bureau that puts Arizona near the bottom of per-student funding.

More significant, Biggs disputed any link between money and education achievement. He said that, overall, Arizona students score higher than those in five of the seven states that spend the most.

But Senate Minority Leader Katie Hobbs said that, at some point, money does matter.

“Our schools have done heroic jobs in maintaining standards and quality during all these years of legislative neglect and cuts in funding,” she said. “But that’s not sustainable.”

And Meyer said that Arizona students, hobbled in part by lack of funding, “are not doing as well as the rest of the country.”

In pushing Proposition 123, Gov. Doug Ducey has called it a “first step” in education funding. But Ducey, who attended Wednesday’s event, was unwilling to make a specific commitment to add additional dollars this coming budget year, even with the surplus.