Editorial: Legislature wrong on budget proposal

Yet the state Joint Legislative Budget Committee proposes to do just that with education in Arizona. The committee is pushing a plan that would take $6.5 million from the University of Arizona's budget, jeopardizing 90 faculty positions. The money would go toward balancing spending among public K-12 schools, a measure dubbed Arizona First.

The ugly irony of shoring up beginning education in Arizona by punching a hole in Arizona's public universities, however, is a sure formula to seeing Arizona end up last.

Education - especially public education - is a continuum. A solid higher education system is as critical to the state's well-being as a solid primary and secondary education system. The state finances education both out of obligation and self-interest. The state has an interest in producing a strong next generation with a feeling for the state and an ability to guide its course, thus collecting dividends on its public education investment.

And Arizona, whose government has been steered by such bright lights as Evan Mecham and Fife Symington is certainly in need of some high dividends.

Students at the University of Arizona are particularly situated to give the state a high return on its investment - many are Arizona natives who decided to stay in-state, or, if not natives, those with enough feeling for the state to attend school here.

In casually proposing to cut funds, and thereby faculty positions, legislators are showing a dim understanding for this facile truth. The move is an oblique insult to Arizona universities, and, in a most miscalculated manner, to the students who opt for Arizona universities. As such, it is no wonder that university administrators and faculty have taken offense.

The move has even worried the Arizona Board of Regents.

"It's another time where Arizona gets a black eye," Regent Hank Amos has said.

A black eye is an apt metaphor for the committee's proposal for it is almost brutally callous in its disregard. Callous, because a simple alternative to this cut is open: finance the Arizona First program through revenue bonds.

Gov. Jane Dee Hull has already proposed an alternate means of funding the K-12 program with $290 million in short-term revenue bonds. That proposal was unanimously supported by the regents on Jan 15.

Admittedly, revenue bonds rather than a cash-on-the-barrel approach will mean a slight elevation in costs. But that price is well-earned if instead of taking a step back to take an ostensible step forward, legislators actually and honestly strike for quality education in Arizona.