The settlement being considered has a $3.5 billion pricetag spread out over 10 years.
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Gov. Doug Ducey called lawmakers back to the Capitol Wednesday night.
If approved, K-12 public schools in the state would get $249 million before the end of the fiscal year in June.
Tuesday, the minority party introduced their plan for education funding that would take money out of the state’s general fund. It would not need to be voted and approved by residents and could give the much needed funds to schools as early as January. The deal will closes out a lawsuit filed by schools after lawmakers stopped making required annual school inflation adjustments during the height of the Great Recession in 2009.
Former Treasurer Dean Martin had just finished testifying when a winded Biggs ran into the room.
The Arizona Senate is set to debate and vote on a package of bills Friday created to settle a lawsuit filed by schools that argued lawmakers violated the state Constitution by failing to provide annual inflation adjustments.
Voters would then have to approve the whole agreement in a May 17 special election. And that would prevent schools from getting their additional cash.
The Republican-controlled Legislature passed and Ducey signed a budget in March that cut funding for K-12 education by $113 million from a formula legislators had adopted past year.
The House vote came without any Democratic votes on two of the bills, but with unanimous support for one in the Republican-controlled House. And I am so thankful that you came by our office and are reaching out.
Schools that sued the state say they are satisfied with the agreement in which they received about 70 percent of the cash they would have received if they had ultimately prevailed in the state Supreme Court.
The information fed criticism and led Ducey to come up with the State Land Trust Fund plan.
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“We’ve just been through a brutal six-year downturn, and we’ve had six months of good news”, Ducey said.
