Governor goes back to the drawing board

Governor Napolitano called for a special session for the state legislature in the wake of her budget vetoes last month. The goal is to bring the legislature back to the table to work with the Governor on passing new bills in place of the ones she KO'd after her compromise with the Republican-majority lawmakers.

She unveiled the first of those replacement bills on Friday: Gov. Janet Napolitano offered a plan Friday to satisfy a federal court order by spending $185 million a year more on Arizona's growing number of students who struggle to learn English. The program would start with $13.5 million this school year but would grow to $185 million by 2009, or roughly $1,300 more for every student classified as an English-language learner.

It seems there is still a fair amount of acrimony left over from last month's unexpected breakdown of the budget deal. The Republican leadership had some unkind things to say after seeing the Governor's new proposal:

On Friday, Republicans quickly questioned the governor's proposal. House Speaker Jim Weiers wondered why the state should spend so much to educate non-English-speaking kids, many of whom he said are in the state illegally or have parents who are undocumented immigrants.

"Under the governor's program, this becomes Mexico's best school district north of the border," said Weiers, R-Phoenix. "There's more in this proposal than the entire funding for the Department of Public Safety. How ironic."

While the comments about 'Mexico's best school district' represent silly hyperbole, the point is still well taken. What was wrong with the version that legislators sent to the Governor's office last month? They still do not appear to believe the Governor's stated reasons for the veto and are adamant that there plan was, and is, better:

Weiers said the Legislature's plan was superior, not just less expensive, because it required schools to justify how much money they would need to tackle their English-learner problems. It also mandated that new money would be spent on English-immersion programs, not on bilingual instruction, a method that districts must obtain waivers to use after voters rejected it in 2000.

The Governor--30 days and counting--has yet to offer anything more than blanket statements about the vetoed bills. She appears to be standing by her previous statements that the versions she was sent were not what was promised.

As an observer of all this I am still struck by the Governor's silence on the key issue of what her office did and/or didn't know about the vetoed bills. The Republican leaders have made it specifically clear that the Governor's chief liaison, George Cunningham, was fully aware of what went into the final version of the vetoed bills and signed off on all of them without offering any indication that they were unacceptable to the Governor.

Meanwhile, Governor Napolitano has offered no specifics at all on this point, only insisting (in the case of the English-learner bill) that the finished product did not contain an agreed-upon provision. Republican leadership in the Assembly and Senate have denied that is the case, making the argument mentioned above of Cunningham's involvement in the process.

The Governor's unwillingness to even address the point leaves those of us on the outside wondering exactly what happened. In my case, my initial suspicion that she simply decided to take what she got and renig on the items she conceded remains. Barring explanation from the Governor's office, how does one eliminate the doubts?

The plan as envisioned by Governor Napolitano has supporters and critics both. Tim Hogan of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest is a strong supporter of Napolitano's plan. He points to built-in accountability, an issue that critics in the legislature do not believe gets addressed adequately:

Weiers argued that Napolitano's plan lacks the accountability of the Legislature's proposal because it doesn't require schools to justify their spending on English learners until after they get the money. But Hogan said Napolitano's plan has rigorous accountability measures that "ensure that the money gets where it's needed."

As reported by the Republic, the Governor's plan would increase funding as well as addressing other issues:

Besides the added funding, here are some of the key elements of Napolitano's plan:

• The money would be put into a special, segregated fund that could be used only for English-language learners.

• There would be annual audits of how every dime was being spent and would require schools to report their academic progress for those students.

• The auditor general, who is a legislative watchdog, would develop a format for districts to detail how and why they were using the money.

In addition to the English-learner bill, Napolitano offered her version of the vetoed corporate-tuition tax credit. This represented the largest concession to Republican lawmakers in the original agreement as it was crucial in securing the Governor's target for full-funding of all-day Kindergarten.

The Republic article closes on a solemn note. On this issue, the Republican legislators are demanding that the Governor sign the original bill before they will even begin discussions on resolving the English-learner issue. Such does not bode well for a quiet, happy summer at the Capitol.

If I were Governor Napolitano, I'd take a long hard look in the mirror before I even ventured to ask the lawmaker's why they're willing to stonewall such a significant issue with a court-ordered deadline for resolution. She has lost their trust and I'm frankly not sure how she can win it back.