It looks like Arizona is once again mortgaging it's future so that it can fill in sort term budget deficits rather than addressing the structural problems which cause it to continually have budget deficits. In 2009 Jan Brewer signed a budget which among other things
stipulates that the state attempt to raise as much as $735 million by selling and then leasing back facilities the state now owns.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/...
Well here we are again. A few years later and Brewer is up to her old tricks.
Hop on over the orange tumbleweed to find out what Brewer is up to now.
A few years ago Brewer decided to sell off public building in order to raise $735 million. The state then leased them back to the tune of $60-$70 million a year for 20 years. I guess math wasn't her strong suite, as that would mean the state would be paying about twice as much in rent in those 20 years as what it received in the sale of those assets. Money which BTW is long gone as it was used to fill in a $3 billion dollar budget gap. Just as a comparison, the state of Connecticut also had a budget gap of in excess of $3 billion dollars and it was filled via a combination of tax increases, spending, payroll and benefit cuts. NO public assets sold whatsoever.
As if that wasn't enough, Brewer also privatized various prisons in an attempt to raise another $100 million. A few years later SURPRISE SURPRISE it's reported that the privatization scheme will cost the state more money than originally planned.
Arizona paid $10 million more for private prison beds between 2008 and 2010 than it would have for equivalent state beds.
Arizona's pending plan to contract for another 2,000 private-prison beds would cost taxpayers at least $38.7 million a year, at least $6 million a year more than incarcerating those inmates in state prisons. Plans to add 500 more maximum-security beds in state prisons would add almost $10 million a year to the bill. The report questioned whether those beds are needed, since the state's prison population has declined over the past two years by more than 900 inmates, to 39,854 as of Wednesday.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/...
That's $26 million more Brewer spent on private run prisons and state prisons that she needed to. IN addition to that the private run prisons had more riots and more problems which will likely cost the state more money. All of a sudden that $100 million made in privatizing the prisons is whittled down significantly. So is it any wonder then that she's now doing
this?
Nearly $50 million of the $97.8 million that Arizona received from settlements between big banks and state attorneys general was put into the state’s general fund, and may not be used for mortgage assistance, the Phoenix Business Journal reported May 2.
Yup, so people who got screwed out of their homes by banks engaging in fraudulent behavior are now getting screwed by the state. Instead of using the money to help people stay in their home, Governor Brewer is taking half that money to plug in holes which in large part were created by her.
Unfortunately this is just the tip of the iceberg with this fucking moron of a governor.
God help Arizona.