PHOENIX – Gov. Jan Brewer signed the latest midyear budget-balancing legislation into law Thursday but added a warning to lawmakers that they should bend her way next time.

“It would be fiscally irresponsible for the Legislature to ignore the depths of the (2010-2011) state deficit by promoting a budget plan for (2009-2010) that relies primarily on one-time measures,” Brewer said in a statement.

To close the latest $650 million shortfall in the current budget, GOP lawmakers resorted to accounting maneuvers that postpone $400 million of education spending into the next fiscal year. They also included $250 million of stimulus money, an amount larger than Brewer wanted but much less than lawmakers sought.

The plan also set the stage for the state to grab some school district savings to help balance the budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Estimates on how much money that would produce aren’t firm.

Brewer told lawmakers that the next state budget shouldn’t rely primarily on similar maneuvers because that would spell trouble for the following fiscal year, which starts July 1, 2010. It also faces a projected big shortfall that spending cuts alone won’t close, Brewer said.

Most majority Republican legislators have balked at Brewer’s call for a temporary tax increase to produce $1 billion of new revenue to help balance the next several budgets in face of deteriorating revenue collection.

Brewer said she “will not approve” a budget that doesn’t take into account the following year’s “needs and requirements.”

“I am hopeful that, with a continued emphasis on negotiation and compromise, the Legislature can reach consensus with my policy goals to approve a (2009-2010) budget package promptly,” she said.

Lawmakers approved the $650 million plan about 3 1/2 months after they closed a previous $1.6 billion budget shortfall. That action included spending cuts, raids on special-purpose funds and use of stimulus money.

PHOENIX – The Arizona Legislature has approved a plan to close the current state budget’s growing shortfall by delaying some spending and using federal stimulus money. It also moves to trim the next budget’s shortfall by grabbing some school district money.

House and Senate votes Wednesday nearly tracked partisan lines as the chambers approved the Republican plan negotiated with Gov. Jan Brewer to close the current budget’s projected $650 million shortfall.

Brewer, a Republican, is expected to sign the two-bill package into law.

“If these bills are passed, they will receive the governor’s support,” Eileen Klein, Brewer’s budget director, told a legislative committee before the House and Senate votes.

The Legislature approved a midyear budget-balancing plan in January to close a $1.6 billion shortfall, but deteriorating revenue collections have produced the expectation of the new shortfall at the June 30 end of the fiscal year.

Republican leaders unveiled the plan Tuesday and pressed for approval Wednesday, citing the state’s lack of cash to pay a $330 million payment to K-12 schools Friday.

The plan would use $250 million of federal stimulus money to replace state dollars for K-12 schools. It would postpone $100 million of university funding and $300 million in K-12 school funding into the next fiscal year.

State repayment of the postponed K-12 funding – nearly all of the payment scheduled for Friday – would then be reduced several months from now by amounts lawmakers say districts have saved above state limits.

Republican supporters said that taking the school districts’ money targets dollars that the districts’ legally can’t have or use and that sweeping it up will help avoid cuts in state aid for schools.

“If there was ever a time to reach into excess funds, this is the time to do so,” said Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa. “They’re going to be used to offset reductions for the classroom.”

Most Democrats protested the grab, saying it could force school districts to raise local property taxes to recoup money grabbed by the state.

“This a backdoor tax increase,” said Sen. Rebecca Rios, D-Apache Junction.

Amounts to be taken from districts have yet to be determined but estimates range up to $300 million.

Even with enactment of the new plan, lawmakers still face the challenge of closing a $3 billion shortfall to produce a budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

By approving so-called “rollovers” of funding obligations into the next fiscal year, Republican lawmakers are following a course of using virtually any and all budget maneuvers before resorting to a temporary tax increase proposed by Brewer.

“What we’re doing here today is fighting off that potential tax increase,” said Sen. John Huppenthal, R-Chandler.

Brewer has exclusive authority to decide spending of most of the state’s stimulus money, and the $250 million allotment for the current fiscal year represents a compromise with legislators who wanted her to use more.

Some legislators said they wished Brewer used stimulus cash to close the current year’s entire shortfall, but Brewer originally wanted to use only $200 million so more could be saved for the next two fiscal years.

“She did compromise,” said Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman.

The Legislature’s draft spending proposal slashes education; health care for poor and disabled Arizonans; child protection; and other services to balance the budget without obvious tax increases or borrowing.

It’s a perfect illustration of how the majority of our legislators try to cling to conservative ideology – i.e., no new taxes – while ignoring the many consequences, from human suffering to setting our economy even further back than it has fallen.

Evidently this ill-conceived budget is the best they can produce after nearly four months in session. Given that failure of leadership, where is Gov. Jan Brewer?

Brewer vowed months ago to push for a new tax via a special election to raise $3 billion. Yet she still hasn’t said what type or size tax she would like to pursue or how the new revenue would be spent from her “five-point tax hike plan.”

Brewer also promised to provide her own detailed budget proposal, but she hasn’t done so even as Arizona struggles through its worst budget crisis in history.

Meanwhile, Republican budget negotiators are playing a veritable shell game with our money while feigning protection of taxpayers.

They want to sweep more than $300 million in savings accounts from school districts, for example, even though much of that money typically is used to cut local property taxes.

They also want to strip about $265 million from cities and counties, a move that likely would force some local governments to pursue new taxes to cover the shortfall.

Yet at the same time, legislators have waived $240 million in outstanding taxes due from corporations, and have terminated 300 employees from the Department of Revenue – staffers whose absence will cost the state $174 million in lost collections, Brewer advisers say.

Legislators and Brewer are ducking responsibility when Arizona needs them most.

Now an even more bleak picture is emerging, as April tax figures show a revenue shortfall of as much as $300 million will materialize by June. That’s on top of the $487 million shortfall already documented.

So how will Republican budget gurus cope with that? By cutting more services for vulnerable Arizonans, we’d wager.

Now more than ever, Arizona needs its governor to exercise some leadership. Brewer has failed to do so, but she still can step up.

We urge her to show some strength before our schools fall apart, hospitals overflow and local governments suffer. Governor, Arizonans are counting on you.

Federal stimulus money will begin flowing to Arizona schools by the end of March, and state universities could see cash as early as mid-April.

That’s earlier than most school districts anticipated.

“It’s sooner than we expected and is certainly a welcome event,” said Sunnyside Unified School District Superintendent Manuel Isquierdo.

“We’re waiting to receive guidelines on how the funds can be used. Sunnyside is a Title 1 district (meaning it receives federal money for low-income students), and is a perfect example of what the president (Obama) has identified. We will use the funds wisely,” he said.

Isquierdo said $4.5 million is “a very rough estimate” of what Sunnyside could receive in the next two years for IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). It is expecting about $6.2 million for two years in Title 1 allocations.

Bonnie Betz, finance director at Tucson Unified School District, said, “I don’t know how much we’re getting and I still don’t know how it will impact TUSD.”

Arizona will receive a total of $4.4 billion from the stimulus package. More than a quarter of it, $1.4 billion, is targeted to help schools and universities save jobs, prevent program cuts and keep tuition from rising despite the state’s plummeting revenues and widening budget gap. The money is intended to last them through 2011, but because Arizona’s shortfalls are so large, it’s unlikely to do much good past 2010, state estimates show.

It is not clear if the money will replace about $260 million in midyear cuts lawmakers already made to schools and universities. Lawmakers still face about a $900 million gap in the current budget year, which ends in July, and are counting on the stimulus money to help avoid additional midyear cuts.

But as state tax revenues continue to slide, it is uncertain how deep future cuts will need to be.

In states where revenues have taken less of a plunge, stimulus money means extra cash for schools and universities to create innovative school programs. In Arizona, stimulus money means schools and universities can just maintain expected services.

Arizona will receive two installments of stimulus money over the coming weeks.

The first installment, about $186.5 million, will arrive in late March, according to a timeline released Saturday by the U.S. Department of Education. It will go directly to schools to help pay for educational needs of low-income students, such as extra tutoring, and students in special education. It is about half the stimulus money dedicated to these funds.

This is extra money for programs traditionally paid for, at least in part, by the federal government.

Most schools will get some money, but the greater part of the funds will flow to schools where at least 40 percent of students qualify for free and reduced lunches, or about 60 percent of Arizona’s 2,000 schools.

The law appears to allow schools to relieve pressure on their budgets and use the money for other programs, in particular to prevent schools from laying off teachers and teachers aids.

The second installment of money to become available is the greater part of a $1 billion “stabilization” fund, the largest single amount of education-stimulus cash Arizona will receive.

About $168 million of the fund can be used by the governor to bolster any state agency, including schools and universities. The rest, $832 million, is specifically for schools and universities.

By early April, the state is expected to ask the federal government to release about two-thirds, or $670 million, of Arizona’s stabilization fund. Arizona’s gaping budget deficit could allow Gov. Jan. Brewer to ask for up to 90 percent of the funds to be released.

The state is expected to receive the remainder of the education-stimulus money between July 1 and Sept. 30.

Citizen staff writer Mary Bustamante contributed to this article.

Arizona’s schools and universities could get as much as $1.7 billion and be spared drastic cuts in the next two years if a stimulus bill similar to the House of Representatives version becomes law.

The U.S. Senate bill approved Tuesday is more sobering: The state would reap less than half that amount for K-12 and higher education, or roughly $700 million extra. One of the big differences is the Senate’s denial of any funds for renovation and construction.

Mesa Republican Rich Crandall, chairman of the state House education committee, said state lawmakers will watch closely.

“2010 was looking to be a complete disaster for the state,” Crandall said, adding that the House stimulus bill would negate that. He expressed mixed feelings about both bills, saying the House version includes excess spending but the Senate’s fails to appreciate how renovation funds will generate jobs.

Either version would offer some good news for schools and universities, where leaders are cutting nearly $300 million in state money from their budgets.

Dranias

All over the state, parents and students are rallying against proposed budget cuts to Arizona’s public colleges and universities.

Instead of focusing ire at legislators, who are literally between a rock and a hard place, there’s another avenue these newly minted activists could pursue.

For Arizonans concerned about increasing access to postsecondary education, why not focus on loosening up state regulations that are choking higher education’s private sector?

Numerous laws make it a crime to open a private postsecondary or vocational school in Arizona without state approval. These laws result in fewer schools and fewer opportunities for students and educators.

Legislators could embrace academic freedom by deregulating private schooling and let the market work.

Arizona pervasively criminalizes entrepreneurs who teach or open a school without government approval. It is a Class 3 misdemeanor to open a private postsecondary school that offers a degree of any kind without approval from the state Board for Private Postsecondary Schooling.

Osteopaths and medical doctors cannot teach without a license. Private cosmetology and radiologic technology schools cannot legally open their doors without approval from state agencies.

The regulation of nursing schools is a particularly outrageous case in point. Despite the shortage of health care workers in this state and elsewhere, Arizona law makes it a Class 6 felony to open a nursing school without approval from the state Board of Nursing.

The risk of jail time for teaching nursing even extends to out-of-state schools that want to offer Arizonans the option of distance learning.

There is no need for these draconian laws, because private postsecondary or vocational schools are self-regulating. To compete with other schools and qualify for national accreditation, just about every school voluntarily meets minimum educational standards.

Arizona’s heavy-handed regulation does nothing to promote quality or prevent fraud. It only stops the free market from giving students and educators viable alternatives to the taxpayer-funded public university and community college system.

And by fostering an artificial scarcity of educational options, the regulation of private schooling magnifies any pain associated with the loss of public funding for higher education.

Such regulation also strangles academic freedom, amounting to an unconstitutional prior restraint on the First Amendment right to teach, hear, learn and know. Fortunately, the solution is simple.

Arizonans can have it all: access to an excellent higher education without abandoning fiscal responsibility. All the state needs to do is decriminalize private schooling, and let people freely teach and learn.

Nick Dranias holds the Goldwater Institute Clarence J. and Katherine P. Duncan chair for constitutional government and directs its Dorothy D. and Joseph A. Moller Center for Constitutional Government.

Democrats call hits on education, social services premature and damaging

PHOENIX – Arizona legislators reported back to the Capitol for a rare Friday workday and are again considering a Republican plan to close the projected $1.6 billion shortfall in the state’s $9.9 billion budget.

The latest development is that Gov. Jan Brewer has presented lawmakers with $18.3 million of changes that she wants, mostly restoration of cuts proposed by lawmakers for social programs and health care. Brewer also proposes cuts and sweeps from special-purpose funds to make up for the restored spending.

The Republicans’ plan includes spending cuts throughout the state government as well as taking dollars from special-purpose funds and using federal stimulus funds.

The spending cuts included in the plan endorsed earlier Thursday by House and Senate committees would span most state agencies and programs as well as universities, community colleges and K-12 public schools.

Expected results include layoffs of state employees, larger university class sizes, closures of state parks, new monthly premiums for low-income people enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program and elimination of a state welfare program that helps disabled people waiting for Social Security benefits.

With state tax collections hammered by the recession and the housing industry’s collapse, Arizona’s shortfall of nearly $1.6 billion is one of the nation’s largest at 16 percent of the $9.9 billion budget for the current fiscal year, which is now more than half over. The budget that legislators will write in the coming months for the fiscal year starting July 1 is expected to have a shortfall twice as big.

House Appropriations Chairman John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, called the current year’s fix a “first, necessary, unfortunately painful step toward financial responsibility.”

Democrats opposed the plan, and Sen. Rebecca Rios, D-Apache Junction, said Republicans’ willingness to cut education funding made the majority’s priorities clear. “I know we had options,” she said.

Many of the spending cuts are in lump-sum amounts assigned to state agencies whose directors must decide how to implement them. Already, Arizona State University has ordered its 12,000 employees to take furloughs of 10 to 15 days before June 30, and Attorney General Terry Goddard has laid off 20 workers already.

Goddard, a Democrat, warned that the legislative plan would force him to lay off half of his office’s criminal division. “There is a dangerous lack of common sense and equity in this budget that must carry our state through a time of crisis,” he said.

Lawmakers said the expectation of $500 million in federal stimulus money, chiefly through increased Medicaid reimbursements to the state, allowed them to drop an earlier proposal to eliminate the KidsCare health care program serving more than 60,000 children.

But the lump-sum cuts for social-service agencies will affect services for seniors, domestic violence survivors and people with disabilities, advocates said.

Legislators had planned a December special session to close part of the shortfall but since-departed legislative leaders scrapped that idea, partly because of an unwillingness to work with then-Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat who has since left office to take a Cabinet post in President Obama’s administration.

Napolitano had proposed some temporary spending cuts as well as fund sweeps, but also suggested new borrowing and deferring some payments of agency expenses into the next fiscal year.

Republican lawmakers, who blame past spending increases and borrowing championed by Napolitano for much of the state’s current fiscal woes, balked at those suggestions.

Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, the secretary of state who became governor when Napolitano resigned Jan. 17, did not release any budget-balancing suggestions of her own. She called the Legislature into special session Wednesday night after Republican legislative leaders assured her they had worked out a plan and had enough votes to approve it.

Saying Arizona likely will net well over $500 million once Congress settles on a stimulus package, legislative Democrats argued that the Republican-led Legislature was moving prematurely to adopt painful budget cuts.

“Republicans have declared war on our education system for no reason,” said Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a Phoenix Democrat who cited a U.S. House vote approving that chamber’s version of the stimulus package.

Republicans argued that the state can’t wait to staunch spending that it can’t afford.

“Every single day we go we lose more opportunities to save some dollars,” said House Speaker Kirk Adams, R-Mesa.

———

Republican budget proposal

Key points of a proposal under consideration by Arizona lawmakers to eliminate a shortfall in Arizona’s current budget:

- Lump-sum cuts and salary reductions for state programs and agencies. To find the personnel savings, agencies have discretion to decide whether to use layoffs, furloughs or vacancy savings. Biggest lump-sum cuts for agencies: Department of Economic Security, $89.4 million, and Department of Health Services, $36.5 million.

— University funding. Cut by $130 million (by the House) or $145 million (by the Senate). Cut is smaller than an early $243 million set of options that included sweeps from special-purpose funds and larger than $100 million offered by Board of Regents and university presidents.

— Stimulus money. The package anticipates the state receiving $500 million in federal economic stimulus money, chiefly in increased federal Medicaid reimbursements to the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, known as AHCCCS, for health care for the poor.

— Health care. Make AHCCCS enrollees pay new monthly premiums. No change to existing KidsCare program for health care for children or a smaller program for parents, both of which had been proposed for elimination.

— K-12 public schools. Funding to districts and charter schools would be cut by approximately $130 million. Major elements include a $21 million cut of annual funding to districts for computers and other equipment and a $98 million reduction accomplished by not overriding a constitutional spending limit for districts. Neither reductions apply to small-enrollment districts. Districts get new discretion to spend their remaining equipment dollars either for that purpose or regular operations.

— Transfers. Sweep money from special-purpose funds into the General Fund, including $130 million from the budget stabilization fund, which is a rainy day reserve. Other examples: $17.5 million from the housing trust fund, $10.1 million from the state lake improvement fund, $20.8 million from the job training fund and $5 million from the arts endowment fund.

— Building projects. Delay and cancel some projects. Examples: Postpone a $10 million expenditure for a southern Arizona veterans home by one year. Withdraw $1.2 million which had been appropriated to renovate the old state health lab. Withdraw $3.2 million which had been appropriated for replacing prison cell doors and locks.

— Miscellaneous. Eliminate the General Assistance welfare program. Authorize the Department of Revenue to establish a tax amnesty program for May 1 to June 1. Increase monthly offender probation fees to $65 from $50. Increase monthly juvenile probation fees for parents to $100 from $50.

———

SOURCE: Briefing by Arizona House leaders, bill summaries by legislative staff.

An out-of-control school bus hit several cars in a mile-long accident scene that injured 25 people in west Phoenix on Wednesday afternoon.

Phoenix police Officer James Holmes says none of the injuries appears to be life-threatening.

He says children are among the 25 injured, but that they weren’t on the school bus.

A total of 13 vehicles including the bus were involved. Everyone injured was taken to a local hospital.

Holmes says it’s unclear why the driver lost control but that he is being interviewed.

Calls to administrators with the Fowler Elementary School District were not immediately returned Wednesday.

Robyn Jacobs, Agua Fria Union High School District's liaison for the homeless, helps organize the distribution of boxes of backpacks, food, books and school supplies from Feed the Children. The goods benefit homeless students across the Valley.

The recession’s effect on employment and housing has trickled down to Arizona’s students. As parents lose their jobs and homes, a growing number of students are now classified as homeless.

The number of homeless students increased 8 percent statewide from the 2006-07 school year to last school year, totaling 20,726 children, according to the Arizona Department of Education. Officials expect that segment of the student population to climb at least 10 percent this school year.

“We’re projecting the increase because the foreclosures have skyrocketed over the last year,” said Frank Migali, the department’s homeless-education coordinator. “People are having to move in with family members. We’re just seeing a whole new face of homelessness.”

The homeless problem is creating an extra financial burden on districts, which already face mounting budgetary challenges.

Some districts are forming partnerships with non-profit groups to help with basic needs.

They also say the number of homeless students is actually higher than what is reported to the state.

In the southwest Valley, the Agua Fria Union High School District’s homeless population more than doubled from the previous school year, with another semester still to go.

“We’ve got families who are losing jobs,” said Robyn Jacobs, homeless liaison for the district. “The foreclosures definitely don’t help.”

Agua Fria is teaming with Feed the Children, an international relief organization, to distribute almost 2,000 backpacks filled with school supplies, books and emergency food packages to homeless students throughout the Valley.

“We’re trying to reach as many children as possible,” said Erin Carlstrom, director of education programs for Feed the Children. “It’s connected with people beyond our wildest expectations. We just want to keep kids in school.”

Last week, a truck with boxes of food, books, supplies and backpacks arrived at the Agua Fria district bus yard in Avondale. Nearly 30 people from Paradise Valley Unified, Avondale, Litchfield, Roosevelt and Washington elementary-school districts waited to help unload the donations.

Feed the Children gives away 100,000 backpacks a year nationwide. This was its first stop in Arizona since the agency’s backpack program started three years ago.

“When our resources are tight, partnering with national organizations really helps because it brought in backpacks and school supplies for kids in Arizona,” Migali said.

———

Federal definition of child homelessness

There are 1.3 million homeless children in the U.S., according to Feed the Children.

Local educators note that homelessness has larger parameters than many normally consider. Federal legislation defines child homelessness by six standards:

• Sharing housing due to economic hardship or loss of housing.

• Living in motels, hotels or campgrounds due to lack of alternative accommodations.

• Living in emergency or transitional housing.

• Living in cars, public spaces, abandoned buildings or substandard housing.

• Primary nighttime residence is not ordinarily used as regular sleeping accommodations.

• Awaiting foster-care placement.

Interested in becoming a teacher? If you can commit to teaching math, science or special education, the Arizona Board of Regents has a loan program that could help in a big way.

The regents created the Loan Forgiveness Program for Math, Science and Special Education Teachers to help students pay for their education. First-time bachelor’s degree students can get a full-coverage student loan with a 100 percent forgiveness provision for teaching at least one year longer than the number of years they received loans.

Many have already taken advantage of this program and are building their qualifications to teach in these high-need areas. Incredibly, however, there have yet to be enough applicants to fill all the available slots.

The need for quality teachers has never been greater. With the new requirement for high-school students to take additional years of math and science, the Arizona Department of Education projects an additional 400 mathematics and 250 science teachers will be needed annually.

Schools are already struggling to find qualified math and science teachers. Even with teachers moving to Arizona each year, the state’s universities still need to graduate 700 new math and science teachers. But with too few college students choosing these critical areas of study, the state is 500 short of what it needs.

“The loan-forgiveness program is one way the state can help infuse more math, science and special education teachers into Arizona’s classrooms,” said Regent Ernest Calderon. “Strong teachers, and more of them, are critical to the future success of our children.”

The regents have posted applications for the 2009-2010 academic year. Completed application packages must be postmarked between Jan. 15 and Jan. 19. For more information and to download the application, visit www.abor.asu.edu.

Attendance drops at preschools as parents try to adjust

Daylen Wright (left), 4, Denali McKnight (center), 4, and Juan Martin, 3, play in a class at Valley Child Care and Learning Center in Glendale.

PHOENIX – When you’re 3, it’s hard to understand why your best buddy suddenly stops coming to preschool, without so much as a goodbye.

“The children miss their friends,” said Corrine Cakebread, assistant director at the Valley Child Care and Learning Center in Glendale, where enrollment has dropped to 149 from 250 a year ago. Signs on three doors at the center read, “This classroom is not in use.”

The nation’s economic troubles are playing out one family at a time in child-care centers and preschools across Arizona as parents lose their jobs and must cut back on attendance or pull their children out of preschool to save money. Child-care centers are reporting 10 percent to 20 percent decreases in enrollment, said Bruce Liggett, director of the Arizona Child Care Association in Phoenix, an advocacy group.

Young children are staying home with unemployed parents or with relatives or friends as families pare day-care budgets. Parents working at home are choosing to keep kids with them, while others are allowing school-age children, some as young as 8, to stay home alone.

“They’re just making do somehow,” Liggett said.

Child-care centers and preschools that once had waiting lists find themselves scrambling to fill vacant spots. For the first time, many are offering part-time or drop-in service and changing hours to better accommodate parents’ schedules.

“While the adults in the family are under this kind of stress, nothing is as important for the child as consistency,” said Dana Vela, president of Sunrise Preschools Inc., with 29 locations in metro Phoenix.

“Children hear the news, and they hear their parents talking,” she said. “They’re aware on whatever level they can comprehend that this is bad, so it’s really important that when they do need child care that they still have the same faces, the same place, the same friends and the same teacher in their lives.”

Enrollment at Sunrise Preschools is down 10 percent from last year.

In Arizona, child-care costs average $6,000 a year for one preschooler. Nationwide, the average is $3,380 to $10,787 annually, according to the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies.

Some parents are falling behind in their payments.

“You feel for the parents,” said Robin Stirling-Kottabi, who owns two child-care centers in Tucson, the Sandbox and the Clubhouse. “Sometimes, it’s a choice between child care and putting food on the table. You understand one thing has to go.”

As with others in the industry, she worries that cash-strapped parents will be forced to make decisions about child care that could be unsafe, such as leaving kids home alone or having older kids care for younger siblings. Others are hiring neighborhood kids for $5 an hour to baby-sit, or leaving children with various relatives throughout the week.

“Children are being bounced from house to house and place to place in order to save money,” said Debra White, operations manager for Valley Child Care and Learning Centers, where enrollment is down 20 percent at 11 locations over last year.

Declining enrollment and spotty attendance are creating financial hardships for centers and preschools at a time when other costs, such as electricity and food, are rising. For the first time in 27 years, Stirling-Kottabi was unable to give her teachers pay raises.

“I am just sick about it,” she said.

Typically, 140 children attend her two centers. Now it’s about 110, sometimes even 97.

Child-care centers are looking at ways to cut costs – conserving electricity, stretching supplies – to avoid reducing their employees’ hours or cutting jobs.

“We’ll make it through, but we worry about the children,” Vela said.

White said, “At this age, children start making those relationships and those bonds, so your 3- and 4-year-olds will ask, ‘Where is my best friend? I miss her. I want to play with her.’ ”

Staff members are unsure what to tell the children.

“We want to be truthful, but we don’t want to scare the children either,” Cakebread said. “We tell the children that their friend has the opportunity to stay at home. We try to focus on the positive.”

PHOENIX — The federal government has fined six charter schools in the Phoenix metropolitan area for failing to follow rules designed to protect from asbestos exposure.

Five of the schools failed to check for asbestos before opening, and all failed to develop management plans, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which inspected in April 2007.

The schools fined were Valley Academy and Horizon Community Learning Center, both in Phoenix; Paradise Education Center in Paradise Valley; Edu-Prize Charter School in Gilbert; Challenge School in Glendale; and Happy Valley School in Peoria.

All were fined $800 to $2,400.

The six schools have now either completed inspections or have obtained documentation that shows no asbestos is present.

PHOENIX – State education officials are launching a review of the AIMS test and whether it should be expanded, replaced or lose its current high stakes status for high school students.

One proposal to be considered is replacing the high school AIMS test with a national college exam. Another newly broached idea is to continue to use AIMS as a high school graduation test but adding a higher-level version to gauge high school graduates’ college and career readiness.

Also on the table: whether to keep requiring Arizona high school students to pass the math, reading and writing exam to get a diploma. AIMS is short for Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards.

A seven-member task force appointed Monday by the state Board of Education will conduct the review, which is required under a law passed by the Legislature last spring. Gov. Janet Napolitano backed the plan.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne cautioned fellow board members that they shouldn’t draw any policy conclusions from the Legislature’s mandate for a review.

The legislative action came in the middle of the night in a surprise move that the chief legislative proponent kept secret from Horne. The superintendent is a defender of the AIMS test as an accountability measure for students, teachers and schools.

However, other board members said they welcome the review, especially the opportunity to consider whether Arizona does enough to determine students’ readiness to move on to higher education or the work world.

The high school AIMS test is essentially a test for 10th-graders and the state must ensure that students know “where they stand in terms of being college ready,” said Cochise College President Karen Nicodemus, a state board member.

However it came about, “it’s an important review,” she said, referring to the task force’s charge from the Legislature.

Northern Arizona University President John Haeger, another board member, said 25 percent of university students need some remedial help.

College entrance tests such as the ACT and SAT are already in place, Haeger noted.

Horne said a new, higher-level AIMS test could test students’ mastery of subjects such as pre-calculus.

“We just can’t make it a high-stakes test,” he said.

The task force is supposed to report its findings and recommendations to Napolitano, the Legislature and the state board by June 30.

PHOENIX – A 62 percent failure rate among high school students on the science portion of the AIMS test shows the need for Arizona schools to improve their teaching of the subject, Gov. Janet Napolitano said Wednesday.

“I think the scores validate what we’ve been saying, which is our kids need more science. And now it’s our responsibility to help them get it,” Napolitano said during her weekly media availability.

Last spring was the first time that science was a part of Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards. High school students must pass the reading, writing and math portions of AIMS to graduate, but the science portion isn’t required for graduation.

Napolitano said Arizona students must have a strong understanding of science to succeed.

“That is what they are going to need; that’s why we need more science teachers,” Napolitano said.

The governor pointed to a new state-level education center that focuses on helping students get the science, technology, engineering and math skills they need to compete in the global economy.

The science portion of AIMS includes questions on life sciences and the nature of science. The results from all sections of the test are used by the federal government to measure if schools are meeting the standards of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Tom Horne, Arizona’s superintendent of public instruction, said he agrees with the governor that there needs to be more focus on science education and on attracting science teachers.

Horne said he expects scores to improve as younger students are taught the standards of the science portion of AIMS, which is administered in grades four, eight and 10.

“You can’t have instant results,” he said.

“The teachers know they are supposed to teach the standards and what students are supposed to rise up to,” Horne said.

On another matter, Napolitano said a study earlier this year that ranked Arizona last in per-person federal earmarks illustrates that the state doesn’t get a fair share back for the tax dollars it sends to Washington. She said not everything commonly referred to as an earmark represents pork-barrel spending.

“We have not gotten out of Washington what a young, growing state needs,” Napolitano said.

“There is a real difference between a bridge to nowhere and a bridge over the highway for kids so they can get to a school,” Napolitano said. “There is a real difference between a bridge to nowhere and more roads in Maricopa County. There is a real difference between a bridge to nowhere and funding health services for children in Arizona.”

PHOENIX — A judge has rejected a legal challenge that argued that it is unfair to make Arizona high school students pass the curriculum standards-based “AIMS” test to get a diploma.

A lawsuit filed in 2006 said the state failed to provide programs and services necessary for “economically disadvantaged” students to meet the state’s academic standards. The class-action suit filed by the William J. Morris Institute for Justice on behalf of students also contended that the state’s school funding system is arbitrary.

The suit cited the Arizona Constitution’s mandate for a “general and uniform” public school system.

Judge John Buttrick of Maricopa County Superior Court took the case under advisement after holding a 12-day trial in June.

His ruling said the challengers “provided some evidence” that poor children start out academically behind other children and continue in that status “because the state does not provide enough resources necessary and appropriate to close the achievement gap.”

But Buttrick ruled against the challengers, saying they failed to prove a relationship between unavailability of programs and students’ failures to pass the test.

The ruling was filed Wednesday and announced Thursday by the Department of Education, headed by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne.

Horne, an AIMS test supporter who contends it motivates students to do better in school, called the ruling a loss for “forces of mediocrity.”

The challengers’ chief attorney, Ellen Sue Katz, did not immediately return a call for comment on the ruling.

The lawsuit sought an injunction prohibiting the state from requiring students to pass the test to graduate.

Passing AIMS, short for Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards, became mandatory as a graduation requirement in the class of 2006. The test includes math, reading and writing sections.

A last-minute addition to the current state budget passed in June creates a state task force to consider testing alternatives to AIMS.

That could lead to a possible revamp or replacement of the test, or even its elimination as a high-stakes graduation requirement.

Separately, the Legislature in May renewed a program that lets high school students augment their AIMS scores with points from good grades on required courses.