by Staff Reporter | May 26, 2024 | Education, News
By Staff Reporter |
The state spends billions more on wealthy students who attend public schools than through the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA), or universal school choice program, according to a new analysis of federal census data from the Goldwater Institute.
The study released earlier this month culminated data from the last five U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Surveys ranging from last year to this year assessing school enrollment types for K-12 children across various household incomes.
The Goldwater Institute found that together, the data revealed that nearly one-third of public school students came from households earning over $100,000, of which about half came from households earning over $150,000.
The study disclosed that the Census data, though aggregated, was limited as general approximations due to coming from sample sizes.
Over 80 percent of children from higher-income households enroll at taxpayer expense in Arizona public schools, at a much higher rate than the ESA funds. About 1.1 million students in all attend public schooling.
Goldwater estimated that the higher rate amounts to anywhere from $2 to $4 billion annually for children from households earning over $100,000, and anywhere from $1 to $2 billion for children from households earning over $150,000.
“[W]hen it comes to funding higher-income students in the public school, the state is being charged specifically for those students, whose collective presence in the public school system does add significant cost to the public school system: both variable and fixed costs, including the necessity to hire additional staff or construct or renovate for larger campuses,” read the report.
The minimum formula funding for one public school student is about $7,500 annually for a baseline. That number rises to $12,200 with the inclusion of other funds like district overrides, bonds, and school facilities funding. The minimum tops out at over $14,700 with the inclusion of federal funding.
By comparison, Goldwater reported that average ESA funds amount to about $7,400. These students also lose out on several sources of fixed and variable costs, such as the Classroom Site Fund, and those funds revert back to the public school system.
Overall, the institute estimated that it costs taxpayers 10 to 20 times more to educate students of wealthy families in public schools than it does for similarly-situated families in the ESA Program.
The Goldwater Institute issued the study on the heels of Governor Katie Hobbs’ January announcement of a budget plan to revoke ESA Program scholarships from nearly 50,000 students.
Aggregated data collected by Goldwater in the course of their research further suggested that about 20 percent of private schoolers came from households with an income under $50,000, while about 50 percent came from households with an income under $100,000.
As for homeschoolers, the institute found that nearly 60 percent of those students hailed from households with income levels under $100,000.
In addition to state and Census Bureau data, the report relied on research from the National Center for Education Statistics, Reason, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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by Staff Reporter | May 23, 2024 | News
By Staff Reporter |
Governor Katie Hobbs announced that she would be recognizing birth control as a right, starting with state employees.
The governor issued an executive order on Monday announcing free birth control for state employees, and ordered the state’s Medicaid agency, Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), to expand contraception access to its members.
The state already issues oral contraceptives to employees at no cost, but only through a prescription. Hobbs’ executive order got rid of the prescription requirement, ordering the Arizona Department of Administration (ADOA) to cover the cost of current and future over-the-counter contraceptives for state employees.
Hobbs referenced Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borrelli’s take on contraceptives as a criticism of Republicans hesitant to make birth control a right for Arizonans through legislation dubbed the “Right to Contraception Act.”
“While members of our legislature would rather tell Arizona women to put aspirin between their knees than pass the Arizona Right to Contraception Act, I will continue to do everything in my power to protect our reproductive freedom and ensure every Arizonan can access contraception,” said Hobbs.
Earlier this month, the governor signed into law a repeal of the longstanding and, until the past year, dormant total abortion ban. Now, state law only restricts abortions after 15 weeks.
The governor’s most recent executive order declared that contraceptives qualify as “essential health benefits” (EHB) required of health plans by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or “Obamacare.” And, recent changes to the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) enabled states to have more flexibility to determine its EHB-benchmark plan set of benefits.
Only the prescription contraceptives qualified as EHB, not over-the-counter ones. Hobbs’ executive order changed that. For now, that only applies to Opill, the only FDA-approved over-the-counter birth control option.
Excluding the universities and Board of Regents, both of which operate their own personnel systems, nearly 56 percent of the state’s nearly 38,300-strong workforce is female: around 21,300 individuals.
Age ranges weren’t defined by ADOA’s annual report, though the average age across both genders was about 44 years old, under the average age of menopause.
The retail price of Opill, the over-the-counter targeted by Hobbs’ executive order, retails at up to $20 per month for a one-month supply.
ASU has more than 20,600 employees. According to their last 10-year report of campus demographics ending in 2022, the university had nearly 10,600 female employees, though the age ranges weren’t disclosed.
The University of Arizona reported nearly 16,700 employees last fall, with about 56 percent of them identifying as female. Age wasn’t disclosed.
Northern Arizona University’s annual report shared they had over 4,600 total faculty and staff last year, not distinguished by gender or age.
ADOA will also be required to provide several reports to Hobbs’ office, one of which will be on benefits and feasibility of access expansion for state employees. That report will be due by June 30.
Another report with ADOA and the Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions will study the benefits and feasibility of a new Arizona Essential Health Benefits Benchmark Plan mandating reproductive healthcare benefits for individual and small group private health insurance plans, including prescription and over-the-counter contraceptives, reversible contraceptives, infertility treatment, and in vitro fertilization.
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by Staff Reporter | May 23, 2024 | News
By Staff Reporter |
The city of Scottsdale unanimously held off on approval of a sustainability plan during Tuesday’s regular council meeting after mass backlash from citizens.
The plan, in the works since 2021, is part of an implementation of the voter-approved General Plan 2035, and the city’s 2022 and 2024 Organization Strategic Plans. Arizona State University (ASU) Walton Sustainability Solutions Service (WSSS) and the Scottsdale Environmental Advisory Commission (SEAC) played roles in getting the sustainability plan together.
Lisa McNeilly, the city’s sustainability director since 2022, gave the presentation on the proposed plan during Tuesday’s meeting. McNeilly was formerly the sustainability director for the city of Baltimore, Maryland from 2017 to 2022, and UC Berkeley from 2008 to 2017. Prior to those roles, McNeilly served as director of international programs for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change (now the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions), and special assistant for President Bill Clinton’s White House Climate Change Task Force.
McNeilly said that Scottsdale’s sustainability plan — focused on energy, water, waste, air quality, and extreme heat — would not only benefit the environment but afford cost savings, health and safety improvements, and economic vitality.
The five-point framework of the plan focuses on energy, water, waste, air quality, and extreme heat.
Energy targets included reducing citywide and municipal electricity use, citywide and municipal greenhouse gas emissions, and the average energy burden for all households; increasing distributed solar capacity both citywide and municipally, and the percentage of “green” buildings.
Strategies to meet these energy targets focused on reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, improving municipal energy performance, and reducing energy impacts of the built environment through sustainable building practices and policies.
Water targets included reducing residential, municipal, HOA irrigation, and commercial water use; increasing return flow percentage; maximizing annual water banking; and maintaining treated groundwater deliveries to Safe Yield levels.
Strategies to meet these water targets focused on ensuring water system resiliency and reducing municipal water usage.
Waste targets included reducing single-family household, citywide, and municipal landfill refuse; achieving diversion rates ranging from 35 to 90 percent across homes, the city, and municipalities; increasing the percentage of recycling; achieving the diversion rate of brush and bulk waste stream; diverting 30,000 tons annually of citywide organic waste from the landfill; and achieving a recycling contamination rate below five percent.
Strategies to meet these waste targets included increasing diversion rates, strengthening local markets for recycled content, expanding opportunities for diverting organic waste from the landfill, and reducing waste generation.
Air quality targets included reducing unhealthy air days, illnesses for pollution-related health events, and municipal fleet fuel use; and increasing the number of publicly available electric charging ports.
Strategies to meet these air quality targets included “cleaning” the city’s air and supporting adoption of electric and other alternative fuel vehicles.
Extreme heat targets included reducing average July daytime and nighttime temperatures, average surface temperatures, and illnesses for heat-related health events; and increasing tree and shrub canopy.
Strategies to meet these extreme heat targets included expanding heat relief communication and education, protecting people from the health effects of extreme heat, identifying urban design improvements including structured shade and built environment, and planting more trees along with the implementation of other nature-based solutions.
McNeilly emphasized that the plan wouldn’t be enforced through any current or future mandates. It’s unclear to what degree this clarification measures up to a promise: in 2022, the city mandated a “Green Construction Code” for commercial and multifamily buildings that, just a decade earlier, had come into play as a voluntary incentivized option.
The city’s plan didn’t estimate exact costs for the actions and strategies, instead assigning three potential cost ranges to each: up to $50,000, from $50,000 to $250,000, and over $250,000.
During public comment on the proposed plan, Scottsdale residents expressed disdain for the plan.
Austin Fairbanks, a senior research analyst in the State House, said that the plan would have minimal impact on the climate compared to the fiscal and quality of life costs imposed on residents.
Fairbanks said that even if 100 percent of all new Scottsdale buildings went “green” in their construction going forward, the city would only achieve “green” for 8.8 percent of all buildings at the current pace, below the goal of 10 percent — which Fairbanks estimated would come at a cost of $90 million.
“Those are just two examples where logic and fiscal prudence were thrown out the door to accommodate this Green New Deal-style agenda,” said Fairbanks. “We’re told this is an aspirational document, but if you were to adopt this plan, it would be a policy standard for the council and staff that you want to meet these goals. And the easiest ways to achieve those goals is by increasing fees and imposing costs and mandates.”
Fairbanks said that Scottsdale contributed 0.00067 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions: even if the city reached its goal of a 90 percent reduction threshold, it would impact less than seven-millionths of total greenhouse gas emissions. Fairbanks estimated that the cost to nearly eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, though not given by the city in its proposed plan, would amount to $280 million for taxpayers.
“Trying to socially engineer residents to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a total of seven-millionths of the total is the wrong approach,” concluded Fairbanks.
Jim Davis with the Coalition of Greater Scottsdale (COGS) expressed concern that fiscal stability wasn’t prioritized enough by the city in its approach to implementing a sustainability plan. Davis urged the council to focus on boosting tourism, and to back off on high-density residential units due to their low revenue and negative impact on city attractiveness.
“The city is underinvesting in its assets. COGS believes the city is not sustainable,” said Davis.
However, COGS board of directors member Sonnie Kirtley said through a submitted written statement their organization supported the sustainability plan.
Councilman Tom Durham said that the plan was “critical” to Scottsdale’s future. Durham characterized public discontent with the plan as a reticence to pay for the sustainability goals. The councilman said it was “misinformation” that the city would introduce mandates to support its sustainability goals.
“People say we can’t do anything, but we have to: it’s part of our commandment,” said Durham. “Some people thrive on disinformation and finding the government boogeyman behind every door, and we all recognize that’s for political purposes, much of it.”
Councilwoman Betty Janik said that sustainability was nothing to do, and that this new plan was just a continuation of the same direction they’d been heading down. Janik compared the city’s sustainability plan to major invention breakthroughs in history that weren’t preceded by proof of concept: Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin, American astronauts walking on the moon for the first time, and AIDS treatments.
“We cannot force [the sustainability plan] on you, it’s something you have to accept and believe in,” said Janik.
Councilman Barry Graham said he didn’t appreciate his fellow council members “casting aspersions” on the residents, such as calling them “keyboard warriors.” Graham said the plan went too far and was both contradictory and vague in its proposals: significant water reduction for residents while planting more trees, and a lack of specificity regarding costs of all goals.
“We’ve gotten hundreds of emails from residents who are confused or find elements of the plan extreme,” said Graham.
Councilwoman Kathy Littlefield expressed concerns about the “unintended consequences” of the actions proposed, namely the greater cost for citizens for less access to utilities and city services, such as water, waste, and power.
“Since when have we as citizens given the city the kind of power or right to monitor our homes and businesses and our lives to this kind of extent?” said Littlefield.
Littlefield noted that she has never seen such a unanimous, overwhelming rejection by the citizens of an issue as the sustainability plan. Out of hundreds of emails, Littlefield said she only received two in support of the plan.
Councilwoman Tammy Caputi said that citizens were missing the “point of the plan.” Caputi insisted that no mandates would come from the plan. She expressed confusion at the community resistance to the plan, saying she felt she hadn’t heard of this mass resistance before in the past two years of the plan’s development.
Mayor David Ortega stressed that the sustainability plan would be important to implement for Scottsdale’s future wellbeing. Ortega said that the city was running out of its resources and bearing a greater cost for them: landfills for waste, water, energy, and clean air.
The city’s presented sustainability timeline, stretching back to 1967, included the major policy changes and actions undertaken in recent years, such as the banning of natural grass in new single-family homes and addition of solar infrastructure last year; the mandate of a Green Construction Code in 2022; and the approval of the 2035 General Plan in 2021; the installation of LED streetlights in 2020.
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by Staff Reporter | May 22, 2024 | News
By Staff Reporter |
Even with an ever-widening political divide yielding highly disparate views of Attorney General Kris Mayes, most may agree that she has kept to her campaign promises, especially with the indictment of those Republicans who challenged the 2020 and 2022 election results.
Securing back-to-back indictments for two highly contentious elections in what amounts to just over her first year in office didn’t come cleanly. Mayes had to break some eggs in the process.
Late last year, the State Bar began an ongoing investigation into Cochise County Attorney Brian McIntyre over allegations that he colluded with Mayes and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes against his own county supervisors, a blatant violation of attorney-client privilege.
McIntyre’s alleged collusion was outlined in a letter that surfaced recently amid that investigation, as reported by The Arizona Daily Independent.
In that letter, McIntyre had requested Mayes to retract the opinion set by her predecessor, Mark Brnovich, on expanded hand counts, a request made while his clients were actively appealing for their ability to conduct those hand counts. Mayes did just that.
The same month that the State Bar began to investigate McIntyre, Mayes secured indictments against Cochise County Supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby for delaying certification of the 2022 election results. The pair were hit with felony-level election interference and conspiracy charges.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Geoffrey Fish heard oral arguments in their case last month. Counsel for Crosby argued in court that Mayes was a “rogue prosecutor” leading a “rogue prosecution” attempting to read motives into Judd and Crosby’s actions amid the 2022 election.
Assistant Attorney General Todd Lawson told the judge that Judd and Crosby were in on “an overall conspiracy, a larger plan” aimed at chaos with the ultimate goal to “obstruct the election.” Lawson disputed that Judd and Crosby, much less any other county supervisor, had the right to do any more to review election results than simply pass along the vote tallies to the secretary of state.
That sentiment drove, in part, the indictments against President Donald Trump’s 2020 electors and their conspirators. 18 were hit with felony charges of conspiracy, fraud, and forgery last month: Kelli and Michael Ward, Tyler Bowyer, Nancy Cottle, State Senators Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern, Jim Lamon, Robert Montgomery, Samuel Moorhead, Lorraine Pellegrino, Gregory Safsten, Christina Bobb, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Boris Epshteyn, Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, and Mike Roman.
According to a new report from Politico featuring anonymous tipsters, these indictments were unprecedented and even rang of the “rogue” characterization.
Some of those indicted were promised repeatedly by prosecutors that they were not the subject of investigation, least of all charges: Bobb and Ellis among them. And yet, the grand jury indicted both.
A grand jury will only indict those who are presented by prosecutors as potential defendants. Nonetheless, Mayes’ office told Politico that responsibility lay with the jury for the indictments.
“The State Grand Jury was given leeway to conduct an independent investigation, as it is entitled to do by law,” said Mayes’ spokesperson, Richie Taylor. “I cannot confirm or deny the specifics of grand jury proceedings, and I will note that the investigation remains open and ongoing. I will have to decline to comment further.”
Multiple high-level prosecutors concurred to Politico that the indictments were “unusual” and “bad form.” They questioned the claims by prosecutors that they were unaware of plans to bring up Bobb and Ellis to the grand jury.
The merit of the prosecutors’ claims earned further scrutiny after they ordered witnesses pleading the Fifth to appear before the grand jury at the jurors’ request. The prosecutors could’ve excused those witnesses, as is customary and even recommended by the Justice Department; instead, they forced them to face questioning and risk the possibility of appearing guilty by remaining silent.
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by Staff Reporter | May 21, 2024 | News
By Staff Reporter |
Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee was honored before Congress on Monday for her work and legacy inspiring girls and young women.
Congresswoman Debbie Lesko presented the recognition for Yee. Lesko noted that Yee was the first Chinese-American woman in Arizona to take on a high state-level position, as well as a Republican.
“It is the first Asian-American elected to a statewide office in Arizona history,” said Lesko.
Yee formerly served in the Arizona legislature, in both the House and the Senate, and rose to become the state’s second female majority leader, after the late Sandra Day O’Connor.
Prior to joining the state legislature and coming to Arizona, Yee worked for California’s Republican governors Pete Wilson and Arnold Shwarzenegger. After Yee moved to California, Yee became communications director for the place she now leads: the state treasurer’s office.
Yee’s transition into the legislature began after Governor Jan Brewer successfully recommended Yee to replace another lawmaker, former Republican representative Doug Quellan.
It was in the legislature that Yee passed a bill requiring doctors to provide women with the option of an ultrasound before obtaining an abortion.
Some of Yee’s high marks in office include her improvements that led to record highs of the Permanent Land Endowment Trust Fund, totaling over $8.6 billion at one point (as of March’s end, $6.75 billion); punishing companies’ boycotts of Israel; and getting into state law a requirement of financial education for high schoolers prior to graduation.
“Treasurer Yee’s service to Arizona has raised financial literacy rates, improved Arizona’s economy, and helped show young women and girls across the state that anything is possible,” said Lesko.
Yee has acted and spoken out consistently on her views of unsound policy, usually Democratic.
Back in February, Yee joined state Republican lawmakers’ lawsuit against the Biden administration over its confiscation of nearly one million acres of land in northern Arizona in an attempt to declare the land a monument.
The treasurer has also pushed back on Governor Katie Hobbs. She asserted publicly that the governor’s proposed education funding plan was “dangerous and unsustainable.”
Yee also refused to admit government employees under two agencies during a Board of Investment meeting after the Governor refused to nominate agency directors.
After the Hamas terrorist attack that initiated the ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza, Yee ramped up support for Israel. The state increased its bond holdings to support Israel.
Yee ensured Arizona was the first state in the country to enforce anti-Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions laws. The state divested $143 million from Unilever, the parent company of Ben & Jerry’s, in response to the latter company’s ceasing distribution in Israel.
Yee also improved Education Savings Plans (ESPs) under her leadership. The ESPs were up 38 percent: a three-year difference worth $2.25 billion.
Last year, Yee resisted Hobbs’ alleged desire to cancel ESA-related grants enabling children to attend all-day kindergarten.
Assets under Yee’s management grew from $15.4 billion when she took office to $30.4 billion.
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