Arizona Senate president: Budget still in red

PHOENIX - Senate President Bob Burns is urging Gov. Jan Brewer to tone down her rhetoric, just days after he said publicly that she was apparently not up to doing her job.

Burns, in a statement released Friday, defended the decision of lawmakers last week to restore state funding for education following the governor's veto of that part of the spending plan for the fiscal year that began July 1. He said it allows public schools to function and maintains Arizona's eligibility for federal stimulus dollars.

But he said the fact remains that, at the moment, the state is set to spend far more than the $7.1 billion in anticipated revenues.

Legislative budget analysts put the deficit at $2.6 billion.

Burns said the state's financial situations remains "an all-hands-on-deck situation.''

"In the meantime, it is not helpful to sling recklessly exaggerated uses of words like 'devastating' or 'decimated,''' he said, both words the governor has used repeatedly in explaining why she vetoed the budget proposal sent to her earlier this month.

Burns said that is misleading, at best. "As a case in point, no budget voted out of the Legislature this year reduced K-12 funding by more than 2.2 percent of its total funds."

Burns just last week issued a statement saying it "appears the governor is having problems managing the level of responsibility to which she has been elevated.'' He also said the governor "has abused the public in what can only be described as a strong arm tactic to take control of the legislative process'' and said Brewer the veto of the $8.4 billion spending plan "appears to be a vindictive retaliation against the Legislature for not rubber-stamping 'her plan.'"

Brewer responded at the time by calling Burns' comments "regrettable and totally unproductive.''