ARIZONA FORECLOSURE PLIGHT CONTINUES

posted by Michael Chihak

By DIANA SOKOLOVA Arizona Week Intern

Arizona’s housing market is struggling to improve after home values collapsed in the last three years. The state is second after Nevada in foreclosure rate. A total of 93,413 foreclosed homes were on the market as of today, according to RealtyTrac, a real estate data provider.

Arizona is among six states – Nevada, California, Florida, Illinois and Michigan are the others – accounting for well more than half the nation’s total foreclosure activity with nearly 1.6 million properties receiving a foreclosure filing in 2010, according to the United States Foreclosure Filing report.

The foreclosure rate in Arizona jumped 22 percent from April 2010 to this April.

RealtyTrac reported that one in every 205 homes in Arizona received a foreclosure filing this April. There were 13,419 new foreclosure properties on the market for the first quarter of the year, the organization reported.

Pinal County had the worst rate of foreclosures in April. 1,034 homes or one in 143. Maricopa County had 9,324 home foreclosures, one in 170. Pima County had 1,686 properties, one in 254, according to RealtyTrac’s report.

On average, homes in Arizona sell for $129,032, RealtyTrac reported.

April 2011 was the second month in a row for Phoenix-area foreclosure rates to drop, an Arizona State University professor of real estate and finance reported. Associate Professor Jay Butler said the drop is not significant enough to improve the overall situation of high the foreclosure rate in the market.

The Arizona Republic in a May 11 story reported that “In April, the Phoenix area had 3,745 foreclosures. That’s down from 4,145 in March but more than the 3,490 foreclosures in April 2010.”

GOOD PLANNING OR GOOD LUCK? WE'LL TAKE BOTH

posted by Michael Chihak

Arizona Week's story focusing on how the 15 counties in the state are coping financially presented us with a significant logistical issue.

The concept was to look at the big picture situation across the state and then focus on a couple of counties, one urban and one rural. But how to do so and capture county officials on camera without having to drive hither and yon was the dilemma.

That is, until Craig Sullivan of the County Supervisors Association of Arizona entered the picture. A Tuesday call to Sullivan was part of the routine, requesting that he appear on camera. He said he preferred that the association's president, Navajo County Board of Supervisors Chairman David Tenney, speak for the group.

How to get Tenney without a drive to Show Low was the question. But not for long.

"He will be in Phoenix later this week for our board meeting, as will supervisors from all over the state," Sullivan said. He then proceeded to set up interviews for us with Tenney and Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Andy Kunasek for Thursday after the association board meeting.

Tenney, speaking for the association and giving the big picture, plus being from a rural county, filled two of the three needs for the story. Kunasek, from the biggest county, fulfilled the third.

And with all counties working on their budgets -- Maricopa County gave tentative approval to its this week; Pima County did the same last week -- the time is right for the story.

We were prepared to do it and were favored by the fortune of having the key people to talk to in one convenient place at the same time.

Watch Friday at 8:30 p.m. MST on PBS HD, or catch it at www.azweek.com.

GOVERNMENT BUDGETING: OBSTACLE OR OPPORTUNITY?

posted by Michael Chihak

In the pile of state budget trimmings in Arizona this spring were $93 million in cuts and pass-along costs to the counties.

They came despite the counties’ consistent objections, most of which involved pleas that it would be the fourth straight year of cuts in state-controlled funding to the 15 counties.

Now the counties are working to put together their budgets for the 2011-2012 fiscal year, leading to resurrection of what is a predictable and yet mysterious political discussion.

The predictable part of the discussion is conservatives saying government must be smaller, and it’s their job to impose fiscal restraint, and liberals saying that budget cutting alone isn’t a good way to make government smaller, and we should tax the rich more.

The mysterious part of the discussion is why there isn’t yet any serious talk of ways to reform the system from top to bottom – including tax reform and a realistic look at what is and is not needed in government structure and services.

The opportunity for true reform is here, with everything from the job market, the housing industry and even the overall economy in need of reinvention.

Yet adherence to party line ideology on both sides is the obstacle to making headway for reforms that will require everyone to let go a bit of their now entrenched positions in favor of compromise that makes the system better.

That's why in the rhetoric over budgeting, it's disheartening to hear the predictable comments on both sides. That continues the obstacles and problems we have.

A company that employed me for many years had as part of its philosophy and culture that there were no problems, only opportunities.

Is that how our political leaders with their predictable sound bites see current circumstances? Or do they see the opportunities in those circumstances?

AZ COUNTIES LOBBIED HARD, GOT LITTLE FOR IT

posted by Michael Chihak

Arizona counties are grappling with reduced property tax revenues, driven down by lower property values, and other reduced revenues. Now, they are dealing with cuts and pass-along costs from the state.

Initially, the state Senate proposed cutting and passing along $150 million in costs to the counties as one of myriad ways they sought to balance the state budget.

The final budged had cuts and pass alongs to the counties at $93 million, still a formidable amount. That includes $8 million in Pima County and $1.2 million in Navajo County, to name just two.

And the cuts to all 15 counties are on top of such cuts previously and other pass-along costs to come. The future pass-alongs will include counties taking on more responsibility and expense for state prisoners.

How are they dealing with all these issues going forward? We will explore the issues fully on Friday's episode of Arizona Week, 8:30 p.m. MST on PBS-HD-6 in Tucson and 11 p.m. MST on 8-World in Phoenix.

For the program, we will interview David Tenney, president of the County Supervisors Association of Arizona and a Navajo County supervisor, and Andy Kunasek, a Maricopa County supervisor.

AZ COUNTIES WORK TO ABSORB $93M IN STATE CUTS

posted by Michael Chihak

Arizona Week on Friday will look at the fiscal situations with the state's 15 county governments as they work toward their legal deadlines for passing state budgets.

Financial issues abound among the counties.

In Maricopa, the supervisors held budget hearings today and are trying to determine what to do about up to $100 million of misspent money in the Sheriff's Department's jail budget, as detailed in the Arizona Republic.

In Pima County, the supervisors passed a tentative budget last week, including an increase in the sales tax rate, although Democrat Sharon Bronson told Arizona Public Media's Christopher Conover in an interview last week that most homeowners will see smaller tax bills because of reduced property values.

In Pinal County, the supervisors last week cut $2.1 million, including 20 layoffs, as reported in the Casa Grande Dispatch.

Other counties face their own difficulties.

We will interview officials of the associations that help lobby on behalf of Arizona's counties and supervisors from two or more counties, for Friday's Arizona Week.

TRUMP CARD: JOURNALISTIC EXPERTISE

posted by Michael Chihak

The depth and breadth of knowledge among the three journalists on today's Arizona Week panel brought home the realities of the state's culture of political and civic leadership.

Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts, tucsoncitizen.com Editor Mark Evans and Tucson Weekly writer Mari Herreras discussed those realities in understandable terms.

They spelled out that the key reality is that Republicans are in charge and call the shots. Others need not apply -- not Democrats, not Libertarians, not Greens, not independent voters.

Yet, the state's voter registration lists show a much more even division, about one-third Republican, a little less than one-third independent, and a little less than that Democratic. Libertarians and Greens bring up the rear with low single-digit percentages.

The key, Evans and Roberts said, is to switch to an open primary system that allows for nonpartisan elections. The problem, Herreras said, is that it will take state political leadership to bring about such a change. The leaders in control won't do it because it would potentially lead to their losing power.

Leaving the system in place as it is means there's one approach to solving problems -- fiscal, educational, environmental and in all other realms. Little or no odds for compromise or bipartisan solutions.

Audacious leadership training programs such as the Flinn-Brown Civic Leadership Academy featured on the program thus are fairly limited in what they can do to drive improvement in many of the state's key issues, the journalists concluded.

That's why we continue to ask for Arizona's best and brightest journalists to be on Arizona Week.