BREWER: BUSINESSES 'WAITING IN WINGS' TO COME TO AZ

posted by Michael Chihak

Republican Gov. Jan Brewer in her first one-on-one broadcast interview of 2011 said Wednesday that she knows the state needs a strong higher education system to help attract business.

Nevertheless, she said, the state doesn't have the money to expand the system. Instead, her budget for next fiscal year would impose a $170 million cut, 20 percent, on the three state universities, and a $73 million cut, or 45 percent, on the community college system.

"Education's been a No. 1 priority," Brewer said. Nevertheless, the universities and community colleges should have been prepared for the big cuts, because "they knew it was coming."

She said the proposed cuts are a change from the current fiscal year, in which federal stimulus money was used to shore up their budgets.

Brewer and the Republican-controlled Legislature pushed through $100 million in state funding cuts on the three universities for the 2009-10 fiscal year. Although funding didn't go down for the current fiscal year because of the federal stimulus money, the universities had to give up $10 million in state aid to get the federal money.

Tax cuts for businesses in the economic development plan that Brewer was expected to sign into law today would give them a $400 million a year break at full implementation, according to her office. The Joint Legislative Budget Committee estimated the reduction at $538 million a year.

She said a number of big businesses were "waiting in the wings" to set up shop in Arizona and create jobs, waiting for the tax cuts package and other incentives in the economic development plan. She declined to identify any of the businesses.