February 29, 2008

Budget Negotiations Lumber On - Arizona Chamber endorses School Construction Bonding - Take Action to urge your legislators to protect critical health and human services for children and vulnerable adults!

BUDGET NEGOTIATIONS LUMBER ON --- BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

A bi partisan group of House and Senate leadership continues the state budget negotiations but no budget bills are finalized for any committee or floor general membership votes yet.  So stay tuned.   This past week the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry came out in support of school financing bonding.  PAFCO also supports the use of bonding for school finance construction.  Nevertheless, we must be persistent in our message of protecting the safety net of health and human services, avoiding cuts, and using reasonable options and solutions.

PLEASE CONSIDER THESE TALKING POINTS AND TAKE ACTION.

·         Do NO HARM! THE SAFETY NET BECOMES EVEN MORE CRITICAL IN ECONOMIC DOWNTURNS.  And will be more critical the longer and deeper any downturn continues as it impacts more poor and vulnerable families and adults. No cuts to critical health and human services.

·         And we know from Nobel Prize economists' analysis - reducing services for low income people is one of the worst things you can do to a state's economy.  (CBPP News Release January 17, 2002)

·         Reasonable options include: Bonding for school construction financing, use of the raining day, rollover of school operations funding, careful fund sweeps, and careful cuts avoiding slash and burn across the board cuts which can devastate programs and put children and families at risk. 

·         Reasonable people will not balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable, children and vulnerable adults.   All other options will be exercised first.

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UNFINISHED AGENDA FOR HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES distributed to legislators, executive agencies, foundations, and community agencies. 

In this time of fiscal crisis, conversations about the future of the state must include the health and human services sector as well as the topics of immigration, transportation, water, economic development, tax policy and education.  Too often, health and human services state budget allocations have been the scraps and afterthoughts of the budget rather than a serious, comprehensive process of setting an agenda of what's needed to seriously address Arizona's social concerns. 

In order to provoke discussion and stimulate solutions, the Protecting Arizona's Family Coalition - PAFCO Education Fund recently published the Unfinished Agenda for Health and Human Services for Arizona.  This unique and unprecedented publication represents a new effort by the PAFCO boards to stimulate action on Arizona's most pressing social and health concerns. 

Much like we must plan our transportation infrastructure, we must plan solutions for the future for our most vulnerable families.  Downloadable copies are available at the PAFCO website.    http://www.pafcoalition.org/pdf/45104_PAFC_complete.pdf

03-25-2008

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