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SEIU Arizona News
A Flat Tax is Flat Wrong!
By Dave Wells
A flat tax to replace our graduated progressive income tax appears to be part of the possible budget agreement between Republican Governor Jan Brewer and our Republican legislative leadership.
What's worse, their numbers are waaaaay off! Read a related story here.
Retirement Package Saves Tempe Jobs
July 1 is a bittersweet day for 65 Tempe city employees. That's the day they retire after having taken advantage of an SEIU-negotiated retirement incentive package that helps the city balance its budget without layoffs.
Saving jobs was "the greatest thing about this entire package and what we worked on as a union," said Hank Reizes, a member of the Tempe Chapter Bargaining Team. Hank is taking advantage of the incentive himself.
So is Tempe Chapter President Carol Martsch, who also helped negotiate the retirement incentive package with the city, and she's profiled in this story in the Arizona Republic.
Merit Pay Preserved for Chandler Employees
Two weeks after taking a stand against Chandler city management's proposal to abolish the Merit Pay system, SEIU, as well as the police and fire unions, have reached a compromise that preserves it.
With that considerable hurdle now cleared, Chandler city council is expected to approve new agreements with city employees at its next meeting.
Details in the Arizona Republic and the East Valley Tribune.
Imagine a Day Doing Without State Workers
Special for the Republic / By Todd Schwarz and Dorothy Czer
While Gov. Jan Brewer and the Republican legislative leadership play their power games, the state of Arizona quickly approaches a shutdown.
Chandler Merit Pay Discussions Move to Mediation
Firefighters, policemen, City management, and SEIU member employees have worked together to maintain jobs and services for Chandler during a difficult budget year.
For the last six months, we have discussed and reached agreements on a number of topics in our MOU. However, maintaining our traditional merit pay system has a been a sticking point.
Merit pay has been vital to attracting and retaining quality employees who believe in making Chandler a great, and safe place to live.
All three organizations have maintained that the system must remain in place, but some in management have claimed that merit pay should be abolished. This issue has stalled negotiations, and now the City Council has referred all parties to mediation.
IQtv was at the Council meeting to report:
Keep checking SEIUarizona.org for more updates on how discussions are proceeding, and for opportunities to speak out for this important part of public service in Chandler.
New Budget in Limbo
Although most Legislators are ready to go forward with a budget that could grind state services to a halt, the bill doesn't appear to be going anywhere.
That would be good news if Jan Brewer wasn't the missing link holding up the bill's 'progress'. Legislators still haven't met with her on the budget, but early indications from her office don't hold much hope for the thousands of Arizona families who rely the state budget for health care, education, and much more.
The Arizona Republic reports on some of the sticking points between the Governor and Legislature:
• A $220 million cut to K-12 education, after accounting for federal stimulus dollars. Brewer opposes this. Lawmakers say it's only fair that the state's largest budget item ($3.7 billion) share in the cuts. The cut amounts to 5.2 percent of the state general fund's contribution to education, or 2.2 percent if other sources (such as a voter-approved tax increase and contributions from Indian gaming revenue) are counted.
• Withholding $150 million from local governments. This includes $95 million of vehicle-license tax money that usually is shared with counties and cities. Brewer opposes shifting the state's financial woes onto local governments, which have their own problems.
• A combined cut of $90 million to the state's universities that would put the schools out of compliance with the base level of support needed to draw down more than $1 billion in federal stimulus dollars. Brewer actually proposes a bigger cut to higher education than the Legislature ($43 million vs. $40 million), but she does not sweep the $50 million from various university accounts that the Legislature does. Brewer wants the sweeps reversed.
Senate Introduces Budget Bills
Republicans in the Senate have introduced a budget that would decimate education and health services.
Just like the last budget, agency directors would be left to decide for themselves how to implement the cuts. That plan had disastrous effects on our community last January, so deciding to try it again is confusing, to put it nicely.
The cuts in this proposal only underscore the need for public employees at every level to build a strong voice. This bill is nothing more than an attack on our jobs, services, and the people who count on us everyday.
The Arizona Republic reports that the majority even rejected one Senator's attempts to save services for the disabled and victims of domestic violence:
Sen. Meg Burton Cahill was the lone Democrat who remained to offer about a dozen amendments designed to reverse some of the spending and policy moves promoted by the Republicans. She was rebuffed on every attempt, ranging from an amendment to restore $13 million for developmentally disabled services to adding back $2.2 million for domestic-violence contracts.
Pima Members Ratify New MOU
Following months of discussions, Pima Members have been able to reach an agreement with the County that keeps intact our previous gains, and provides strong protections in the event of layoffs. We've also prompted the County to consider a plan to ease the burden for those of us on the PPO plan.
Members overwhelmingly ratified the new MOU, and now it goes to the County Board for their approval.
This has been a difficult year for everyone, but this agreement shows that that if we work together, we can find ways to make hard times manageable. Now it's up to us to keep building membership to prepare for next year, when we can build on what we've won.
IQtv has a report on the ratification:
Brace Yourselves: Brewer to Release Budget this Week
In her four months as Governor of Arizona, the only action Jan Brewer has taken on the budget has been to slash funding for education, health care, and other services we need for economic recovery.
Now, she is finally ready to put forward a budget only 4 weeks before the end of the Legislative session. This time, she will need well-connected spin doctors to help justify the massive cuts to state services her new budget is likely to contain.
The Arizona Republic reports on some of the plan's leaked details:
• A smaller hit to state agencies: Her plan includes about $425 million in budget cuts, compared with about $660 million in the Republican legislative plans.
• A multiyear phase-out of the education equalization tax: The Republican plan calls for repealing the tax. Phasing the tax out over several years would ease the loss of $250 million in anticipated yearly revenue.
• A sales-tax expansion: The state tax would temporarily include food bought at grocery stores. Most cities tax such purchases, with the notable exceptions of Phoenix, Mesa and Surprise.
• A new tax: She believes the state could raise $1 billion yearly from a temporary increase in the sales tax, which would hike the state rate to 6.6 cents per $1.
If the budget does include hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts, it will be little more than a reprisal of the last budget, which met with widespread public opposition.
Click here to call on the Governor to pass a budget that avoids the mistakes of the past:
Brewer Indecisive About Recovery Funds
Hundreds of millions of dollars are available to Jan Brewer to help make up the budget gap and fund a robust budget for education and health care, but she is still struggling to make a decision.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act specifies how some funds be spent in crucial areas like education, but other monies are up to the discretion of states' governors. In Arizona's case, that's not a good thing. Brewer has been the Governor of Arizona for four months, and has still not come up with a plan for using all the stimulus funds.
Meanwhile, the Legislature is left to debate a budget that includes stimulus support without input from the only official legally authorized to decide how that money is spent.
Capitol Media Services reports that, having already spent some, Brewer has a lot of stimulus money at her disposal:
Of the $399 million left, Brewer plans to provide $224 million for K-12 education, with $146 million for universities and $29 million for community colleges. Gubernatorial press aide Paul Senseman said that breakdown is pretty much mandated by law.
What is not, Senseman said, is how quickly Brewer has to spend the money. He said the governor is free to use some, all or none of that for the upcoming budget year - and free to save some, all or none for the following fiscal year.
Brewer already has said she doesn't intend to burn through all the cash to balance next year's budget. The governor said she has been saying "from the beginning" that the state's fiscal problems won't be resolved quickly.