DALLAS — A temporary one-cent sales tax increase approved by Arizona voters in May 2010 has produced $100 million less than originally projected and failed to prevent $454 million in cuts to education and a $564 million rollback in health care spending, according to state reports.
When Republican Gov. Jan Brewer proposed the three-year increase in the sales tax last year, she pitched it as an alternative to catastrophic cuts in funding for what she called essential services, such as education and health care.
However, state revenues continued to fall, and voters in November refused to allow the Legislature to shift dedicated tobacco tax revenue from education to cover the growing budget shortfall. The ballot measure known as Proposition 302 would have countermanded a 2006 voter initiative called “First Things First” that committed the tobacco tax dollars to education and health care for children.
Opponents of Proposition 302 said that the measure was contrary to voter sentiment expressed in May with 64% approval of the three-year sales tax increase under Proposition 100.
Now, some Arizonans are criticizing the Republican-controlled Legislature for making cuts in education and health care while making less severe cuts in other areas or, in some cases, actually increasing funding.
“Our middle-class families understood that education funding is critical for their own survival. That’s why they voted overwhelmingly last year to tax themselves more in the middle of a recession to pay for public education,” said Ann-Eve Pedersen, president of the Arizona Education Network, a parent-founded organization that advocates for public education. “Yet, the governor, who made herself the face of Prop. 100 as she was running for re-election, and the Legislature, showed true lack of character by violating the public’s trust with these deep cuts to education.”
While making the deep cuts to education, the Legislature also cut teacher salaries while passing $538 million in tax cuts for corporations, Pedersen said.
Brewer said that she worked to reduce the cuts to education during the last session but ultimately had to compromise.
