Gov. Doug Ducey said Tuesday he won't take another round of tax cuts off the table, even as Arizona schools struggle to recover the hundreds of millions of dollars in state aid they lost during the recession.
The latest figures from legislative budget analysts show Arizona ended the fiscal year on July 1 with $322 million more than expected, at least in part due to prior funding cuts to education.
Current revenues continue above projections, but Ducey refused to say he would use that to restore aid to schools rather than push for a second year of cutting revenues.
“Let's give it a little bit of time,” Ducey said. “I think everybody knows my commitment to fiscal responsibility, and there's some things I want to move forward in the state. First and foremost is to get additional and new dollars to our K-12 schools. So we're working on that — outside of the budget.”
That "outside the budget" is his plan to use not just the interest from the state land trust to fund schools, but actually tap the principal.
The current state treasurer opposes that, as do two treasurers who preceded Ducey. They call the plan fiscally unsound.
But there's a political advantage to tapping the trust fund rather than allocating tax dollars. Ducey promised during the 2014 campaign to cut taxes each and every year no matter what.
Ducey said he intends to cut taxes, but wants to see where the state is financially.
He has five months to release his budget plan and any call for new tax cuts.