by Terri Jo Neff | May 15, 2022 | Economy, News
By Terri Jo Neff |
Shortly after being sworn into office more than seven years ago, Gov. Doug Ducey made it clear to the heads of every state agency that he wanted the needs of residents to be better served and to make Arizona an attractive location for businesses.
The result was the rollout of the Arizona Management System (AMS), a results-driven philosophy which empowers state employees to identify ways to make the government work more efficiently while eliminating waste, all with an emphasis on enhancing customer service. And AMS is paying dividends, according to several agency directors who recently provided updates to Ducey.
Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services
Building upon Arizona’s commitment to veterans, the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services embraced AMS to identify and work to solve the root causes of veteran suicides. Stakeholders -including the Department, the Governor’s Office, and the Arizona Coalition for Military Families- came together with a different approach to veteran suicide prevention.
The result, according to Col. Wanda Wright, is Arizona’s Be Connected program, which was recognized by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs with the 2021 Abraham Lincoln Pillars of Excellence Award.
Arizona Department of Water Resources
Drought response and preparedness plays a vital role in guiding Arizona Department of Water Resources, but there was a time that the state’s water professionals had limited involvement in federal strategic planning related to drought.
Under AMS, ADWR expanded its network of experts in academia, the private sector, and industry groups to lead statewide drought planning efforts. One outcome, according to ADWR Director Tom Buschatzke, is Arizona’s active participation in the Intermountain West Drought Early Warning System.
Arizona Department of Transportation
Prior to integrating the AMS philosophy in Arizona Department of Transportation projects, stakeholders often complained that deadlines were of higher concern than local impacts. But with AMS in place, Director John S. Halikowski says ADOT employees are applying several innovative approaches to keep vehicles -and commerce- moving during construction projects to minimize potentially disruptive restrictions and closures.
Arizona Department of Environmental Quality
Misael Cabrera was named director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality shortly after Ducey announced the AMS initiative in 2015. In response, ADEQ has developed the “My Community” dashboard to provide environmental and demographic map data on its website. The timely information is accessible via an easy-to-use, online tool the public can use to understand what ADEQ is doing to address environmental issues in various communities.
Arizona Department of Housing
Another state agency which embraced the AMS philosophy early on is the Arizona Department of Housing. It saw several increases in efficiency by implementing a more visual method of keeping staff updated on deadlines and department goals. And that has continued since Director Tom Simplot took the helm in 2021, with an emphasis on faster inspections and decision-making. More information on how AMS is improving state agencies is available here.
by Terri Jo Neff | May 15, 2022 | News
By Terri Jo Neff |
While the City of Bisbee is hoping $24 million in municipal bonds will resolve fiscal problems associated with its unfunded liability to the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System (PSPRS), the governor recently signed legislation addressing the opposite problem – several public safety employers who have overly funded accounts or accounts with no future liabilities.
Gov. Doug Ducey signed Senate Bill 1085 earlier this month to provide government employers of public safety workers more options in calculating contribution rates paid to PSPRS. The legislation, sponsored by Sen. David Livingston (R-Peoria), also addressed the fiscal burden on public safety employers when even when the group is properly funded or has an excess of employee contributions.
Before the governor signed the bill, certain members of PSPRS hired after July 20, 2011 and before July 1, 2017 generally pay an employee contribution rate of 11.65 percent. However, employee contributions above 7.65 percent are not directly accounted for in the valuation process, so they do not serve to reduce an employer’s contribution rate.
SB 1085 modifies how the “excess” of employee contributions are treated once an employer reaches 100 percent funded status. As a result, any employee contribution above 7.65 percent can be factored into the valuation process in an effort to reduce any required employer contribution.
The Joint Legislative Budget Committee has identified 12 local government PSPRS employer groups which appear to meet the 100 percent funding threshold: Apache County Detention, Coconino County Deputies, Flagstaff Police, Gila County Dispatchers, Graham County Dispatchers, Groom Creek Fire, Hayden Police, Pima Police, Pinal County Dispatchers, Tombstone Marshals. Wickenburg Dispatchers, and Winslow Fire.
Another key feature of SB105 is a provision which removes language in state law dating back to FY 2007 that required the employer contribution rate to not be less than 8 percent of employee compensation (5 percent for some employers) regardless of funding status. In some circumstances, the PSPRS Board of Trustees would have authority to suspend additional employer contributions subject to certain fiduciary restrictions.
SB1085 also provides a procedure for an employer to request the PSPRS board transfer excess assets of an employer’s account which has no liabilities or beneficiaries to another PSPRS group under the same employer. The JLBC reports this would currently impact only three employer groups: Greenlee County Attorney Investigators, La Paz County Attorney Investigators, and Tonopah Valley Fire District.
PSPRS was established in 1968 to provide a uniform statewide retirement program for public safety personnel. It is a defined benefit pension plan organized into local boards for different employing agencies.
However, overly optimistic investment projections, a rash of baby boomer retirements, and a kick-the-can attitude by many city and town councils the last two decades has left several PSPRS employer groups underwater and accruing interest.
Last year Ducey signed legislation which appropriated $500 million of the state’s budget surplus to the underfunded Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) account with PSPRS. Despite the move, the DPS group’s unfunded PSPRS liability remains at nearly $431 million, and grows at about 7.3 percent annually.
Another $502 million in supplemental payments -to the DPS and the Arizona Game & Fish Department PSPRS group accounts- has been proposed this year by the governor’s office as budget discussions continue with the Legislature. Another Livingston-sponsored bill SB1087, would have also appropriated $550 million toward underfunded pension liabilities in the Corrections Officer Retirement Plan (CORP) which is administered by PSPRS.
SB1087 cleared the Senate but not the House. As a result, any appropriations for state pension liabilities will likely be addressed in budget bills in the next few weeks.
The State may be flush with cash, but the same cannot be said for communities like Bisbee which has a $24 million PSPRS unfunded liability. Voters there will be asked in November to approve a city council plan to continue a one-cent sales tax, half of which will be used toward payments on a recently adopted resolution for the issuance of municipal bonds to pay off the city’s entire underfunded PSPRS liability.
Doing so, city officials announced earlier this month, will result in a bond interest debt that is less than the amount accruing each month from interest on its unpaid $24 million PSPRS debt.
by Corinne Murdock | May 15, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
The testimony of a whistleblower from San Luis, a border city in Yuma County, was featured in the 2020 election fraud documentary “2000 Mules.” The inspiration for the documentary title came from the number of alleged “mules” across the five battleground states that visited 10 or more ballot drop boxes during the 2020 election. A “mule” is an individual that delivers harvested ballots to election drop boxes.
In addition to the whistleblower testimony, the documentary presented ballot drop box evidence as proof that widespread election fraud rigged the 2020 election to ensure President Joe Biden’s victory over former President Donald Trump, a belief critics dubbed “The Big Lie.”
The Yuma County whistleblower explained that she worked as a receptionist for an organization that received harvested ballots all week long from various individuals, mostly female, who would come into the office on Fridays for their payment. She explained that it was part of a greater network she called the “Mexican Mafia.”
According to the woman, someone would call periodically to ask how many ballots were brought in to her and if they were already filled out. Then, a woman would come in to review the ballots. Afterwards, the other woman would deliver them in a drop box or ask the whistleblower to deliver them to a local library’s drop box at night because it had no cameras. The whistleblower didn’t have an estimate for how many ballots she dropped off, agreeing that the count could have ranged in the hundreds.
She asserted that ballot harvesting ensured fixed elections long before they took place.
“I don’t even think they know the meaning of what voting is,” said the woman. “[The elections] are fixed. They’ve been fixed. They already know, seriously, who is gonna win the next election before it even happens.”
The whistleblower explained that the people in her area are an easy target because they’re mostly Hispanics unfamiliar with the law.
“They look at [ballot harvesting] as ‘Oh, she’s trying to help us because we’re older, because she’s having someone come and pick it up at my house, because I don’t drive,’” said the woman.
The woman explained that peers dissuaded her from educating the community about ballot harvesting because she would “end up in the trash can in pieces” for subverting the election mafia’s will.
True the Vote, the nonprofit that combed through geotracking data and 4 million minutes of ballot drop box video feed, estimated that there were around 2,000 mules who visited 10 or more drop boxes across Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Pennsylvania for the 2020 election. However, when they lowered the criteria to include those that visited five or more ballot drop boxes, the number of alleged mules increased to 54,000.
Under the first criteria of individuals who visited 10 or more drop boxes, Arizona had 200 mules in the Phoenix area averaging 20 drop box visits and five ballots each, totaling 20,000 votes. Biden won the state by around 10,000 votes. When accounting for the 54,000 suspected mules, researchers estimated that the average of five drop box visits and three votes cast accounted for about 810,000 votes in the 2020 election. Of those types of votes, Arizona accounted for over 207,400.
Overall, the 2000 alleged mules that visited 10 or more drop boxes each averaged 38 drop box visits each, with an average of five ballots inserted — about 380,000 votes the documentary claimed were illegal. Michigan allegedly had 500 mules averaging 50 drop box visits and five ballots each, totaling 125,000 votes. Biden won the state with 154,000 votes. Wisconsin allegedly had 100 mules averaging 28 drop box visits and five ballots each, totaling 14,000 votes. Biden won by around 20,000 votes. Georgia allegedly had 250 mules averaging 24 drop box visits and five ballots each, totaling 30,000 votes. Biden won by around 12,000 votes — 18,000 less than the votes linked to the mules. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania allegedly had 1,100 mules averaging 50 drop box visits and five votes each, totaling 275,000 votes. Biden led Trump by around 80,000 votes — around 195,000 less than the votes linked to the mules.
When accounting for the alleged mules that visited five or more drop boxes each, Wisconsin had over 83,500 of those drop box votes; Georgia had over 92,600; Pennsylvania had over 209,500; and Michigan had over 226,600.
The bulk of the research for the documentary came from True the Vote, a Texas-based election integrity organization founded in 2009. The founder and president of the organization, Catherine Engelbrecht, and an election intelligence expert of 40 years, Gregg Phillips, presented a summary of their discoveries in the documentary.
Engelbrecht shared that, according to whistleblowers, mules receive an average of $10 per ballot and are generally required to take pictures of the ballots as they’re delivered into the drop boxes. Engelbrecht dismissed rebuttals to the claim that those identified as mules might be individuals with large families or those who happen to drive by ballot drop boxes frequently. She explained that the mules’ travel patterns concentrated around origin points at organizations where ballots were given to the mules, then drop boxes, then back to organizations that had ballots to dole out for mules. Phillips clarified further that the drop boxes were often in locations that required individuals to diverge from main roads.
The pair noted that they discovered multiple drop boxes’ video feed was shut off.
“You don’t need a lot of fraud. You just need a little in the right places at the right time,” explained Engelbrecht.
The day of the announcement of a State Grand Jury indictment of two individuals in December 2020, Engelbrecht and Phillips showed video evidence that Georgia mules donned blue surgical gloves when stuffing drop boxes with ballots during the runoff election. Phillips explained that the FBI used fingerprints to identify the Arizona ballot harvesters.
The two ballot harvesters were from the same area as the whistleblower featured in the documentary.
“This is an organized effort to subvert a free and fair election,” said Phillips.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | May 14, 2022 | Education, News
By Corinne Murdock |
Last month, the Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) gave a company $180,000 to do work already within the outlined responsibilities of its leadership: future planning and creation of a new mission statement.
In an email obtained by AZ Free News, Interim Chancellor Steven Gonzales insisted that the need to outsource the mission statement and strategic plan was due to the capacity constraints of the district’s Institutional Research/Effectiveness (IR/IE) experts normally responsible for those duties.
He further claimed that the increased community diversity necessitated a mission statement makeover and brand-new strategic plan. The allusion to diversity likely came, in part, from MCCCD’s new partnership with the technology company Intel to launch a semiconductor manufacturing bootcamp using American Rescue Plan funds — the entirety of the first class were women.
Gonzales projected that the new mission statement and strategic plan would be ready by New Year’s Eve, with implementation following in January of next year.
Although Gonzales said that the district was under capacity constraints, they formed a steering committee to offer resources to the vendor: MGT of America Consulting. The company has held many contracts throughout Arizona: they were hired by the city of Glendale, city of Scottsdale, city of Goodyear, Maricopa County, Coconino County, and Mesa Public Schools over the past few years.
The announcement came shortly after the Phoenix Business Journal selected Gonzales as one of the “Most Admired Leaders of 2022.” Gonzales assumed the interim chancellor role in January 2020.
75 percent of MCCCD’s income comes from property taxes. Only 23 percent comes from tuition. According to a railbird, MCCCD’s enrollment dropped to one-third of its previous enrollment.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | May 14, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
The largest newspaper in Arizona hired two new reporters with the help of a group funded by some of the country’s most powerful Big Tech corporations and liberal companies.
The new Arizona Republic reporters came from Report for America, a program launched by the Big Tech and liberal-funded GroundTruth Project to place their hand-selected journalists in newsrooms across the world. The not-for-profit receives millions from the likes of Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and the Ford Foundation for its mission to “restore journalism.”
The program offers a major financial incentive for news outlets to take on its reporters. Report for America pays 50 percent of their reporter’s salary the first year with a cap of $25,000 for reporters with less than eight years experience or $30,000 for reporters with eight or more years of experience, then 33 percent of the salary the second year and 20 percent the third year with no cap.
Outlets don’t even have to worry about paying for the entire remainder of those reporters’ salaries. The program pledged to help fundraise half or more of the remainder of each salary. High turnover wouldn’t be an issue, either — the program requires reporters to commit to working at least two years in the newsroom to which they are assigned.
News outlets must relinquish some of their freedom when it comes to hiring the program’s reporters, however. Outlets don’t get to choose from all of the program’s reporters. Report for America hand-selects three to five candidates from which the outlets may choose.
The owner of the Arizona Republic, the mass media holding company Gannett, has given thousands to the program: an undisclosed sum ranging from $5,000 to $50,000.
In addition to the Arizona Republic, Report for America journalists are working for Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting and Tucson Sentinel.
Report for America claimed that its reporters are committed to non-partisan, non-ideological local reporting. Over 200 news outlets across each of the 50 states house at least one of the over 300 Report for America journalists. Two-thirds of those reporters are women, and nearly half are “journalists of color” according to the program.
GroundTruth’s editorial partners include The Washington Post, Time, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Guardian, USA Today, PBS, NPR, NewsWeek, TeenVogue, CNN, Cosmopolitan, ABC News, and USA Today.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Terri Jo Neff | May 13, 2022 | News
By Terri Jo Neff |
The State of Arizona has paid roughly $6 million in the last three years to private law firms to defend the Arizona Department of Child Safety against multiple allegations of staff malfeasance and misfeasance leading to the neglect, even death, of children placed into the state’s foster care system.
In the meantime, concerns brought forth by the Arizona Auditor General’s Office in 2019 about foster home recruitment, licensure, use, and retention have not been fully implemented by DCS, and there won’t be another status report to the Arizona Legislature until later this year, according to public records.
A nearly 60 page special report to Gov. Doug Ducey and lawmakers in September 2019 outlined six recommendations for improvements within DCS for Arizona’s foster care system. One key area of concern was foster parents who reported feeling excluded from decisions about the children in their care as well as difficulty accessing needed support and pressure to accept foster placements.
There were also several instances in which foster parents complained of being provided “incomplete or inadequate” information about the children placed in their care, something auditors confirmed when reviewing placement packets as part of the audit.
In May 2020, the Auditor General’s Office provided lawmakers with an initial follow-up, at which time it was revealed DCS was still in the process of implementing five of the six recommendations. Steps to implement the sixth recommendation had not been started, according to the audit report, despite the fact it addressed one of the main complaints – the lack of customer service to improve foster parent recruitment and ensure retention.
Instead, DCS was concentrating on developing and launching of Guardian, its much needed new agency-wide database. But when Guardian went live in February 2021, state employees closed off some features of the system to other state agencies, including the State Foster Care Review board and the Arizona Ombudsman’s Office.
In addition, there were numerous complaints from foster parents, adoptive parents, and foster children transitioning out of foster care about late payments for several weeks after Guardian went live.
A November 2021 “second follow-up” report by the Arizona Auditor General at the 24-month period did not get into those problems. Instead, the report to the chairs of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee remained focused on the six recommendations from 2019, of which DCS had fully implemented only 50 percent.
And there was still had no start date in sight for implementing an improved customer service model, according to that report.
Despite the lack of performance by DCS, there will not be another audit report to the Legislature on the foster home concerns until this fall, according to August General Lindsay Perry’s office. That will mark three years after the initial special report.
The six recommendations and findings as noted in the November 2021 report were:
1. DCS should develop and implement a customer service model to improve foster parent recruitment and retention, and engage in continuous quality improvement via feedback to ensure the model’s successful implementation.
But according to the Perry’s staff, DCS reported “it has yet to begin implementing a customer service model because of competing priorities within the Department, such as implementing its new case management system (Guardian). The Department has not identified a start date for implementing this recommendation.”
2. DCS should, as required by Arizona law, provide foster parents “with complete, updated written placement packet information upon placement of children with foster parents.”
The placement packets began being issued by DCS in September 2021 through an online portal for new and renewed placements. However, obtaining feedback on whether the packets were worthwhile was to be included as part of the improved customer service outlined in Recommendation 1. As a result, the Auditor General cannot make any assessments until the 3-year report on whether the placement packets have resolved concerns expressed by foster parents.
3. The Auditor General also recommended DCS undertake an effort to find out why a foster parent closes his or her license. The pre-Guardian database only allows one reason to be entered, even though foster parents fill out a form which allows for marking multiple reasons. According to DCS, this problem will be resolved at some point via Guardian.
4. Already implemented is the Auditor General’s recommendation that DCS develop and implement procedures to ensure contractors and staff adequately handle intake in English and Spanish, including answering or returning phone calls in a timely manner and meeting Department expectations for call quality.
5. Also implemented was the recommendation that DCS implement procedures to ensure contractors maintain websites with information about how to become a foster parent in Spanish.
6. DCS also improved its monitoring of foster home recruitment and support contracts to ensure core contract requirements are being met, such as providing access to respite care and other requirements DCS deems critical to the contracts’ success.