SEEKING BREWER'S 2012 AGENDA

posted by Michael Chihak

Arizona Week Friday will feature our latest conversation with Gov. Jan Brewer., the fourth in a year's time.

We will ask the governor about her legislative agenda for the year, her spending and budgeting plans, what she thinks Child Protective Services needs to get better at what it does and other issues.

What questions should we ask of Brewer? Post your thoughts as comments with this blog, and we will try to work them into the conversation.

Then watch here later in the week for her responses, and watch Arizona Week Friday at 8:30 p.m. MST on PBS-HD6 or at azweek.com for the complete interview.

MENTAL HEALTH HELP? NOT AFTER JAN. 8

posted by Michael Chihak

Here’s the sad fact of the day: Arizona has made no improvements in treatment of mental health issues in the last year.

At the state government level, no one is talking about it, no one is drafting legislation, no one is working on ways and means of coping with a societal issue that has stayed mostly invisible.

It was that way a year ago, too – invisible – until someone who needed mental health help acquired a gun and used it on 19 innocent people.

In the days following the Congress on Your Corner shooting tragedy in Tucson, there were anguished calls for improvement in the mental health treatment system, including requests for more resources.

The man accused in the shooting spree had manifested mental problems for several years, and yet he went untreated.

Afterward, legislative leaders labeled him a “nut” and a “mad man”, but they didn’t bother saying what they as public policy makers would do to see that this or any other mentally unstable person could get needed treatment to avoid another tragedy.

In the year since, very little has been said on the topic at the legislative and policy-making level of state government.

What has happened is that political leaders have drastically cut spending for health care for the poor, including money that would have gone for mental illness detection and treatment.

So we’re worse off now than we were a year ago, despite the impetus that this tragedy should have created.

And while we can’t pay for mental health treatment, we still have big subsidies in place, courtesy of state policy makers, for professional baseball and football and basketball.

We have a raft of tax breaks – dare we call them subsidies? – coming for businesses.

But we can’t afford to provide mental health treatment for people who need it.

And not only that, except for a few isolated forums, media stories and desperate pleadings, we don’t even want to talk about it publicly. That is, until the next tragedy, God forbid.

Who’s the mad man now?

ONE YEAR LATER: NEW DYNAMIC OR SAME OLD?

posted by Michael Chihak

Friday's Arizona Week will focus on the ramifications of the shooting tragedy of last Jan. 8.

The program will feature a panel of veteran journalists who covered the news that day and in the days that followed as the story took on many manifestations politically, socially, in terms of community and healing.

The journalists will discuss Tucson and Arizona as they are today, comparing with a year ago to gauge any changes.

They also will look ahead to the continued push for civility in politics and public discourse, for any signs of added resources for the mentally ill and their issues and for what political change the events of Jan. 8 may yet bring about.

LEGISLATORS DISAGREE ON USE OF STATE SURPLUS

posted by Michael Chihak

Republicans who control Arizona state government -- and its purse strings -- are beginning to discuss what might be done with the state's growing revenue surplus.

A very tight state budget, following three previous years of significant cuts, has caused teacher layoffs and crowded classrooms, reduced health care for the poor and crowded emergency rooms at hospitals that are absorbing the costs and local governments scrambling to cut because of state-taken revenues.

Now reports are that the state is taking in hundreds of millions more than budgeted. The surplus will be at a minimum $330 million and could go as high as $500 million by the end of the fiscal year June 30.

Here's what political leaders are saying so far:

• Gov. Jan Brewer, who said earlier this year that she fought for more funding for education but couldn't get all she wanted, now says the top priority for spending some of the state revenue surplus should be more money for tourism promotion. She is proposing adding $7 million to the tourism marketing pot.

• Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, says he wants to proceed cautiously but is included to support Brewer's proposal.

• State Senate President Steve Pierce, R-Prescott, says he wants to save all the surplus and keep next year's budget flat to this year's. His rationale is that the state will need the money by 2014 when the one-cent education sales tax expires and federal health-care regulations begin kicking in with pass-along costs to the states.

• Rep. Matt Heinz, D-Tucson, says he wants to see some of the surplus go to restoring health-care for poor children and childless adults who were cut from the rolls this year.

The legislative session begins Jan. 9 with Brewer's State of the State address. Look for her to outline what she thinks the budget ought to look like and what increases, if any, ought to be made in state spending.

Friday's Arizona Week will look at the possibilities for state spending in 2012.

NEXT STATE BUDGET: FLAT OR FATTER?

posted by Michael Chihak

Arizona tax revenues could exceed projections this fiscal year by $330 million, maybe even more, as the economy slowly emerges from the recession.

That's put a gleam in some eyes about the next state budget and what ought to be done with it.

Most Republicans agree that much if not all of it should be set aside for the rainy day that's sure to come in a couple of years when the one-cent education sales tax expires. That will leave a $900 million hole in the budget.

Here are some ideas for what to do with at least a portion of the surplus:

• Gov. Jan Brewer says state tourism marketing and promotion spending should be jacked up by $7 million, which House Appropriations Chairman John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, says he is willing to go along with.

• State Senate President Steve Pierce says he prefers to see the entire surplus squirreled away for that "fiscal cliff" coming in 2014.

• House Appropriations Committee member Matt Heinz, D-Tucson, says some of the surplus should be spent on restoring funding for health care for the poor and, perhaps, for education.

On Friday's Arizona Week, we will look at the options and alternatives for the next state budget. Interviews on the program will be with Pierce and Heinz.

Journalists Andrea Kelly of Arizona Public Media, Mary Jo Pitzl of the Arizona Republic and Luige del Puerto of the Arizona Capitol Times will analyze and comment on the coming session.

GIFFORDS: MOM'S PAINTINGS AND CHEEZ-ITS

posted by Michael Chihak

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has all the comforts of home in the suburban Houston residence she shares with husband Mark Kelly.

And why shouldn't she? It is one of three homes that Giffords and Kelly have maintained as part of their once hectic schedule -- she in Washington for congressional work, back to Tucson most weekends for constituent visits, to Houston when she could; he mostly in Houston, sometimes blasting off into space, visiting his wife in Washington and Tucson when time permitted.

Then came Jan. 8, 2011, when Giffords was shot through the left side of her brain in a tragedy that took the lives of six people who had come to visit Giffords at a "Congress on Your Corner" event. Giffords was among 13 people wounded.

That changed life for Kelly and Giffords, and they have settled in -- temporarily -- to the modest brick home on a quiet, tree-lined street in a residential neighborhood of suburban Houston.

There, the decor includes several of Giffords' mom's paintings on the family room walls, a brightly decorated Christmas tree and several toasters. After all, Kelly pointed out during our visit Thursday, "Gabby likes toast."

Ah, yes, that report of the first word she spoke after the shooting. "Toast," she was reported to have said when served a breakfast that didn't include it. Kelly and Giffords' book, Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope, debunks that, saying her first word, a day or two earlier, was "what" or more like "whatwhatwhat."

Giffords departs each morning for physical therapy in downtown Houston, carrying with her a cooler filled with lunch that Kelly has prepared. Included, he told us, are a couple of pieces of fruit and, usually, her one junk-food indulgence, Cheez-Its.

She was at physical therapy on Thursday when we interviewed Kelly. Our interview can be seen at azweek.com.