Tuition for the next academic school year is going up at Arizona State University for all students, while tuition hikes at the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University will hit mostly new students, according to the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR).
On Thursday, the ABOR which oversee the state’s three public universities announced higher tuitions and housing costs for residents and non-residents during the 2022-23 school year. All except the UofA will also be increasing the cost of student meal plans.
“The board recognizes any increase in tuition has an impact on Arizona students and families, but we are pleased that the presidents’ proposals included only modest added costs in 2022-23,” ABOR Chair Lyndel Manson said of the hikes. “The proposals demonstrate the joint commitment of the presidents to prioritize Arizona, access and quality while shielding resident students to the greatest extent possible from extraordinary inflationary cost pressures.”
The ABOR’s announcement means existing and new resident students at ASU will be paying 2.5 percent more than this year’s tuition. That works out to $10,978 for undergrads who are Arizona residents and $12,014 for graduate in-state resident students
ASU students who are not residents of Arizona will experience a 4 percent tuition hike, while the ABOR approved a 5 percent hike for international students at ASU. Online students registered at ASU will also notice a 2 percent increase in the cost of each credit hour.
At the UofA, resident students currently in the Guaranteed Tuition Program will not see tuitions go up, but incoming freshman and undergrads whose tuition is not guaranteed will pay $11,535 per year, a two percent increase. UofA grad students who are residents will pay $12,348, which is also up 2 percent.
Non-resident new students and non-resident existing students who are not in one of UofA’s guarantee tuition program will see tuition rates jump 5.6 percent. Different tuition rate increases are being implemented for the UofA’s College of Medicine and College of Veterinary Medicine students.
Meanwhile, incoming freshman and graduate students at NAU will be hit with a 3.5 percent tuition increase to $11,024 and $11,390 respectively. The rate boost applies to resident and non-resident students.
Undergraduate course fees at NAU will also be changing for the 2022-23 year. Meanwhile, international students at NAU will experience the biggest tuition hike among the three universities, with increases of 7.2 to 7.4 percent.
But that is not the only economic impact students at Arizona’s public universities will have to contend with for the 2022-23 school year. The ABOR has upped its housing costs between 3 and 3.5 percent at all three universities.
Any students seeking to utilize a university’s meal plan will also have to fork over more money during the next school year. In addition, ABOR also boosted some mandatory student fees.
According to the ABOR, a person must be able to prove “continuous physical presence in Arizona for at least 12 months immediately preceding the semester of application” to be eligible for resident tuition.
According to one Peoria Unified School District (PUSD) teacher, some elementary schoolers may have worn pink, teal, and white to honor International Transgender Day of Visibility last week.
Coordinating educator Sarah Chunnui, a “resource teacher” for fourth and fifth graders and special education teacher at Desert Harbor Elementary School, submitted an email obtained by AZ Free News to notify staff of the unofficial holiday on March 31. A PUSD spokesperson told AZ Free News in a statement that Chunnui’s email didn’t receive approval from the Desert Harbor Elementary School principal, Becky Berhow, prior to its sending. PUSD added that Chunnui’s email didn’t say explicitly that she coordinated with students, but didn’t dismiss speculation that Chunnui may have undertaken coordination efforts.
“Hello Fabulous Staff,” began the email. “I just wanted to let you know that you may see our students wearing more pink, teal, and white today. Today is a quickly growing annual event called ‘International Transgender Day of Visibility.’ Our President is expected to make some announcements today on new legislature [sic] to protect the rights of Trans [sic] students, any [sic] many of our students have taken a keen interest in these legislative movements.”
Chunnui closed the email by encouraging staff to affirm the children of their activism.
“How can you help? If you notice a student purposefully wearing the colors of the trans flag, a simple ‘I see you’ or ‘I support you’ can go a long way. Thank you fabulous staff!”
In the signature line, Chunnui ensured to include her pronouns: “she/her” and “they/them.” She also goes by “Mx,” a title invented by LGBTQ+ activists signifying a “gender-neutral” individual who doesn’t identify as any sex.
In a response email submitted to the Desert Harbor Elementary School community, Berhow clarified that only staff received the email — not parents. Berhow characterized the email as Chunnui’s “personal views.”
“Today you may see a screenshot on social media of an email that was recently sent by one of our staff members regarding personal views on International Transgender Day of Visibility. While the message may get increased attention in our community, it was important to me that you know that the email was only sent to our staff and not to students or parents,” wrote Berhow. “At Desert Harbor, we pride ourselves on using our limited resources to directly support teaching and learning. Please know that not all messages you see posted are a representation of our school or district.”
Berhow encouraged parents to communicate with her and reach out with any questions on any matter.
State Senator Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert) told AZ Free News that this was another example of improper educator behavior.
“No level of sexuality or lifestyle should be pushed onto little children. I don’t care if they are pushing for heterosexuality. Leave our kids alone. Teach them math, reading, and science,” said Petersen. “These actions are completely inappropriate as someone who is in a position of trust with our children.”
Previously, Chunnui was a resource teacher for kindergarteners to second grade students at Rogers Ranch School in Laveen School District, where Minority Leader Reginald Bolding (D-Laveen) hails from. Chunnui joined Desert Harbor Elementary School in August 2019; she has been teaching for over 10 years.
AZ Free News reached out to Desert Harbor Elementary School and PUSD for comment.
In February, Chunnui hosted a read-aloud for Desert Harbor Elementary School, in which she read a book championed by left-wing activists as a destructor of gender norms: “Pink is For Boys.”
PUSD does have Gay-Straight Alliance, also known as Gender-Sexuality Alliance, (GSA) clubs at Sunrise Mountain High School, Ironwood High School, and Raymond S. Kellis High School. GSA clubs are the product of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a national organization focused on the sexuality of minors — specifically, promoting and normalizing LGBTQ+ lifestyles. The Phoenix chapter of GLSEN advised K-12 educators last December to incorporate “secret libraries” in their classrooms to advance LGBTQ+ ideology.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Most Americans would agree that taxes aren’t among the top ten things they love about this country — that is, unless you’re a corporation in Arizona looking ahead to SB1643. The bill offers corporations the option to cash out unused Research and Development (R&D) tax credits normally carried forward by taxpayers, totaling around $2 billion in 2019. SB1643 would allow corporations to cash them out at 60 cents on the dollar for “reinvestment” projects, with each corporation limited to $10 million a year or their amount of unused R&D credits, whichever is less. In order to implement this program, the state would appropriate over $50 million from its general fund. The bill would also increase the annual aggregate cap’s refundable portion of the R&D credit from $5 to $10 million. SB1643 passed in the State Senate several days after failing initially last month, and awaits final consideration in the House.
Valid reinvestment projects would include sustainability or water capital projects; building or updating research and development facilities; capital expenditure projects or workforce development projects with universities or career technical education districts, including tuition reimbursement, hiring employees for the institution of higher learning, and apprenticeships; and capital expenditure projects supported by matching funds from federal or national grant programs.
In practice, those reinvestment projects tend to encourage corporations to be fashioned in government and bureaucrat-friendly trappings. Sustainability efforts fall in line with initiatives fulfilling the climate justice portion of the Green New Deal: electric vehicle charging stations, windmills, public transit, solar panels, and greenhouse gas elimination on farms. The city of Phoenix has been the poster child for climate justice, implementing a “cool pavement” pilot program to mitigate urban heat, a phenomenon of higher temperatures in urbanized areas, as well as pledging to become 100 percent carbon-neutral by 2050, eliminating food deserts, and establishing 100 years of clean and reliable water supplies.
Workforce development initiatives would err on the side of social justice activism. One recent example would be defense technology giant Raytheon, whose workforce development initiative, “Stronger Together,” garnered international controversy for requiring employees to adopt critical race theory (CRT) beliefs through a training program. The program targeted white employees, listing white, straight, Christian men as the pinnacle of the “oppression hierarchy.” The company also segregated employees into race and identity groups.
Investigative journalist Christopher Rufo exposed Raytheon’s initiative last July. In an interview with Fox News, Rufo opined that the reason corporations like Raytheon push woke ideologies was to ensure that the government had less reasons to scrutinize them, allowing for an uninhibited flow of taxpayer dollars.
“Think of it as a protection racket similar to the Mafia, where you pay a small fee — in this case, you signal virtue, you hire the right consultants, you sign the right pledges to decolonize your bookshelf or to interrogate your unconscious bias — and then these companies hope to be left alone, that the social media mob, that the politicians in office, that the Biden Administration will keep that taxpayer money flowing because they’ve signaled the right beliefs,” said Rufo.
SCOOP: Raytheon, the nation's second-largest defense contractor, has launched a critical race theory program that encourages white employees to confront their "privilege," reject the principle of "equality," and "defund the police."
Let's review the internal documents.🧵
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) July 6, 2021
Raytheon has a headquarters in Tucson.
Banner Health, one of the state’s largest employers, clarifies that its workforce development and training course content is “culturally appropriate” and “trauma informed,” among other things. Those same keywords were present in Raytheon’s woke workforce development program.
Workforce development initiatives with universities under the tax credit program may look like the latest efforts out of Arizona State University (ASU) and its “New Economy Initiative,” which aims to increase the number of science, technology, and engineering workers and therefore attract more large technology companies. The state gave ASU $32.2 million over last year and this year, with an additional $21.2 forthcoming. ASU projected it would double these funds over the next decade, and create 40,000 new jobs by 2041.
As part of a statewide plan to attract high-tech industry, @ASU is building five science and technology centers. Here, we take an inside look at the Advanced Manufacturing Science and Technology Center. @ASUEngineeringhttps://t.co/mbXbx7Xciu
On Thursday, State Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott) revealed that Maricopa County election officials ordered postal workers to destroy live ballots that were undeliverable. Fann noted that those ballots were vulnerable because they weren’t destroyed immediately. Fann also insisted that there were over 700,000 ballots that didn’t have proper chain of custody documentation. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer dismissed Fann’s claim in a statement to AZ Free News, explaining that the ballots in question weren’t live ballots and that, upon being discovered as undeliverable, the barcode on each ballot in question is canceled and therefore unusable.
Maricopa County Election officials claimed they could account for every ballot delivered to the election departments. Fann refuted that claim. Instead, she claimed that there were ballots returned to the post office because they were undeliverable, and the election officials ordered them to be destroyed because they weren’t “needed.”
“Those ballots never went back to the election department, they never went back to run back,” said Fann. “Those were still live ballots that anybody could’ve tampered with until such time that the post office destroyed them. Why were we allowing that to happen?”
Fann said that there were investigations underway to determine the legality of allowing the postal office to destroy live ballots on their own time.
These remarks were conferred in an interview with “Conservative Circus,” where Fann asserted that Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s interim report of the 2020 election was only “scratching the surface,” and that more would come to light. Fann confirmed that Brnovich’s report discovered exactly what she expected they’d find. She ascribed Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and mainstream media’s negative, “apoplectic” reactions to the report, as described by host James T. Harris, as fear over full exposure of the mass cover-up of problems in the 2020 election.
“It’s still a cover-up. I don’t say that lightly,” said Fann. “We’re finally being validated that, yes, in fact there are problems with our elections system here in Maricopa County.”
AZ Free News reached out to Richer about Fann’s claims. Richer reiterated the county’s promise that they could account for every one of those undelivered ballots, and that none of the canceled ballots were voted on. He asserted that Fann was misconstruing a normal partnership between elections offices and post offices.
“Karen Fann is again distorting the truth to fit her narrative. Since 2015, Maricopa County has used an ‘Electronic Service Requested’ endorsement on election mail. We have a contract in place for the United States Postal Service to provide the Elections Department with an electronic file on each mail piece so the office can expedite address checks as required by law. Ballots returned through the Electronic Service Requested process are not ‘live ballots’ as Karen Fann stated. Each early ballot has a unique barcode that cannot be replicated. The barcode on each returned packet is canceled and the ballot can no longer be used to cast a vote,” responded Richer. “The fact is, the United States Postal Service is a government agency tasked with the safe handling of billions of pieces of mail, including the secure destruction of undeliverable election mail. This process is used by Elections Departments nationwide. Maricopa County has a record of every mail piece returned through this process as well as every ballot returned by voters. Our system shows that no attempt has ever been made to cast one of these canceled ballots.”
AZ State Senate President Karen Fann discusses AG Mark Brnovich's latest report on election integrity and also disc https://t.co/ed70TIZqP7
Brnovich’s report explained that his Election Integrity Unit (EIU) discovered instances of election fraud, but that their review is ongoing and therefore limited to further disclosures on that subject. The attorney general summarized that there were system-wide issues with early ballot handling and verification, calling the signature verification system “insufficient” against preventing fraud. One example noted that well over 206,600 early ballot affidavit signatures were verified in an average of 4.6 seconds per signature. Brnovich also revealed that about 20 percent of early ballots were improperly transported from drop locations to election headquarters.
“We have reached the conclusion that the 2020 election in Maricopa County revealed serious vulnerabilities that must be addressed and raises questions about the 2020 election in Arizona,” said Brnovich.
Fann lamented that several Republican colleagues joined Democrats to kill several election integrity bills this session. She said that the problems highlighted by Brnovich’s report were only several of the problems that would be found pending further investigations. Fann didn’t name the “one or two Republicans” that prevented key election reform legislation from passing, but our reporting indicates that she was likely referring to State Senators Paul Boyer (R-Glendale) or Michelle Ugenti-Rita (R-Scottsdale).
“This is why it is so important we do not ease up on this,” said Fann. “We know where the problems are, so why aren’t we securing that so that the problems don’t happen again? That’s all there is to it.”
Fann called it “frustrating” that the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors pushed back against any scrutiny of their elections. She also called out County Recorder Stephen Richer for falling short of his campaign promises, in which he pledged to right the wrongs of former recorder Adrian Fontes. Fann added that Richer’s public remarks about how their county ran the 2020 election perfectly contradicted an email she brought to the “Conservative Circus” interview, in which Richer said there were “plenty of instances of actual prosecuted and convicted election fraud violations.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) promised to vote for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson about two hours before the Senate voted to confirm her.
Sinema’s remarks mirrored those issued earlier this week by Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ). Sinema emphasized Jackson’s amount of trial court experience, though she didn’t delve into the details of Jackson’s more controversial cases involving violent criminals like child rapists.
“Judge Jackson brings to the bench a wealth of knowledge, more trial court experience than all other current Supreme Court Justices combined, a commitment to respect precedent, and a proven independent, pragmatic approach to judicial decisions. Judge Jackson has exceptional qualifications and will serve our country well in the years to come,” wrote Sinema.
Statement on Voting to Confirm the Nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to be an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court pic.twitter.com/gW56qH8ccz
The Senate Republicans known within greater GOP circles as “Republicans In Name Only,” or “RINOs,” were the ones who rejected their party’s stance to confirm Jackson: Mitt Romney (R-UT), Lisa Murkowski (R-AL), and Susan Collins (R-ME).
Judge Jackson’s confirmation was a historic moment for our nation. We’ve taken another step toward making our highest court reflect the diversity of America. She will be an incredible Justice, and I was honored to share this moment with her. pic.twitter.com/K8SAh25NL5
In the weeks before Jackson’s appointment, reporters discovered that the White House briefings of Jackson’s rulings in which she administered punishments below sentencing guidelines excluded the more controversial cases.
Three consumer taxes should be immediately suspended to help Arizonans deal with post-pandemic inflation, and two of those taxes should be abolished altogether, State Sen. Warren Petersen argues.
On Tuesday, Petersen (R-LD12) called for a temporary halt to Arizona’s 19 cents per gallon gasoline tax. He also wants to see the food tax and the residential rental tax not only suspended, but also eventually abolished.
Petersen doubled down on his proposal Wednesday, telling KFYI’s James T. Harris there is “no reason” his proposal cannot be implemented in light of Arizona’s more than $1 billion budget surplus. Especially with a Republican-controlled Legislature and a Republican governor.
“People are absolutely reeling from inflation right now but we have state and local governments that have more cash than they’ve ever had before,” Petersen said, adding that his proposal would bring “immediate relief to some of the people that need it the most.”
Suspending the gas tax until the end of 2022 would help Arizonans at the pump, Peterson explained. He added that the move could bring even further relief for consumers due to high gas prices being integrated into the cost of everything else people buy.
The state’s huge budget surplus is more than enough to supplant the $300-$350 million in gas tax revenues needed to fund transportation projects across the state, Petersen said.
While a gas tax holiday would be temporary, Petersen is calling on his fellow lawmakers to support a permanent end to the food tax in Arizona.
“That just hurts the poor more than anybody, and only some cities charge it,” Petersen told Harris.
As to his third suggestion of the abolishment of residential rental taxes, Petersen questioned why a special consumer tax is charged of those living in a rental unit.
“Nobody should charge this,” he argued. “People don’t pay a tax every single time they pay their mortgage, but yet tenants every single time they pay their rent they pay a tax on their rent.”
Petersen believes the time is right for Gov. Doug Ducey to call a special session so that lawmakers can provide immediate relief through the huge budget surplus.
