President Michael Crow outlined the effects of potential 2010 budget cuts, including the need for tuition surcharges, and Gov. Jan Brewer gave an overview of her plan to cover the state’s projected $3 billion deficit at a forum in Tempe on Thursday morning.
The forum, titled “Convening the Community,” brought together the governor and her staff, state legislators, prominent local businessmen and municipal leaders from across the state to discuss the economy and the state budget.
During a roundtable discussion on education, Crow said the University would have to seek other sources of revenue to make up for projected 2010 budget cuts, including an additional tuition surcharge that could cost students thousands of dollars.
“Additional tuition recommendations, and [recommendations for] a tuition surcharge are due to the Board of Regents this evening,” Crow said. “Those numbers won’t be in three digits, those numbers will be in four digits, just to give you some sense [of their impact].”
Crow told The State Press editorial board last month that temporary surcharges and additional fees were possibilities the University was looking into. In an interview after the meeting, University spokesman Virgil Renzulli confirmed that the University would be submitting its formal proposal on Thursday evening. Details on the proposal will be released early Friday morning, he said.
State and municipal politicians also discussed ways of cutting costs and generating revenue on every level of government. Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman called on leaders from across the political scale and spectrum to come together.
“This is not the time for partisanship or competition,” Hallman said.
The rifts between various agencies, levels of government and individual politicians were immediately apparent, however. Each presented different solutions and criticized others’ solutions as harmful in the long run.
Brewer and her staff members outlined the five-point plan she unveiled to the
Legislature in March, which includes a combination of temporary tax increases and budget cuts of about $1 billion. She also said she thought too many politicians and department leaders were depending on the stimulus, which provides a temporary solution to the deficit.
“The federal stimulus money will help in the short-term,” Brewer said. “But let no one think that this money will solve the deficit over the next few years.”
Brewer’s proposed tax increases have drawn heavy criticism from Republicans in the Legislature, who say the increases will hurt the businesses the state relies on for generating long-term revenue.
“We have to rely on the private sector to provide us with the revenue to fix this problem,” said Senate President Bob Burns, R-Peoria. “We should be sensitive to the way our policies affect them.”
Speaker of the House Kirk Adams, R-Mesa, joined Burns onstage and outlined the Republicans’ plan for the 2010 budget, which includes the sale of many state prisons to private companies, borrowing money, and about $840 million in spending cuts.
The meeting on Thursday was the first time Republican leadership in the Senate publicly announced their estimates for proposed cuts. Adams and Burns didn’t specify how cuts would be distributed.
Also representing the state education system was Deborah Duvall of the Mesa School District and Chancellor of Maricopa Community Colleges Rufus Glasper.
Duvall criticized what she said was a lack of focus by legislators on education, which is crucial to economic growth. Lawmakers have not tried hard enough to look into alternative sources of revenue and other places to cut, Duvall said.
“If a student handed this [budget] in to me for a class, I would give it an ‘F,’” she said. “I would say, ‘You haven’t done what you were asked to do. You haven’t done your assignment.’”
Reach the reporter at derek.quizon@asu.edu.
