Pima County would be hit with about $13 million more in contributions to the state long-term care program under a House committee proposal in the still-unapproved Arizona budget.

The proposal by the House Appropriations Committee would hit Pima and Maricopa counties for a combined $55 million more in contributions to the state general fund in the coming fiscal year – with Maricopa contributing the majority.

The proposal drew immediate response from Pima County officials, who this fiscal year had to scramble to replace $3.2 million from case reserves taken by the state to balance this year’s state budget.

“We weren’t pleased with the added $3.2 for ALTCS last year, let alone the $13 million more now,” Martin Willett, deputy county administrator, said Friday.

The long-term care program pays for people in nursing homes and health care for the blind and the disabled.

Willett said the $13 million the county could be paying was not included in the recently-released fiscal 2010 county budget of about $1.37 billion. The budget is scheduled to be tentatively approved May 19. The fiscal year begins July 1.

County officials have worked since late last year to eliminate a projected $38 million budget deficit – mostly through across-the-board department cuts of 7.5 percent to 10 percent, a wage and hiring freeze and layoffs, mostly in the Pima County Development Services Department.

“There was no real explanation from legislative staff on the rationale for this,” Willett said.

Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Pleasant Valley, is a proponent of transferring revenue from the counties to the state general fund.

Kavanagh on Friday said that the counties could see the money returned in the form of federal stimulus funding that will come to Arizona.

Kavanagh said the state budget is far from ready for votes by both the House and Senate, and transmittal to Gov. Jan Brewer.

“We still have a lot of talking to do,” he said. “It could be a week; it could be a month,” Kavanagh said.

County governments are experiencing budget crises just like the state, which has a projected $3 billion deficit for next fiscal year, Willett said.

“Are we just supposed to write them a check?” Willett asked.

There is no guarantee that the state would return the money to counties from federal stimulus funds, either, Willett said.

Groundbreaking will begin next week in southern Arizona for the virtual border fence project’s first permanent detection towers, a spokeswoman in Washington said Friday.

Contractors preparing sites for the towers “will start moving earth next week,” Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Jenny Burke said.

The towers will hold sensors, cameras and communications equipment designed to detect illegal immigrants and drug smugglers and to enhance the ability of Border Patrol agents to intercept and apprehend them.

The towers are to be built first in Arizona, the busiest corridor for illegal entries along the Mexican frontier over the past decade. Plans call for also placing such towers along most of the 2,000-mile Mexican border, in New Mexico, California and almost all of Texas within five years.

But within the next few weeks, Burke said, officials with the Secure Border Initiative have to assure that problems that came up with various components during systems testing have been resolved.

“The Department of Homeland Security has to give approval before we hang sensors on the towers,” she said.

“There were some issues that cropped up during systems testing qualifications. SBI believes that they have been fixed,” and will seek to provide assurance of that during the next couple of weeks, Burke said.

The first permanent towers will encompass a total of 53 miles of the Arizona border in two chunks southwest of Tucson. One will replace a prototype temporary virtual fence near Sasabe.

An anticipated crush of new housing on the Southwest Side over the next 25 years has Pima County officials prepping to ensure that development will help pay for the costs of infrastructure improvements.

County engineers have come up with an 83-page Southwest Infrastructure Plan to project transportation capital improvements that will be needed to accommodate an estimated 44,600 new homes in an area bordered by Tucson Mountain Park, Mission and Sandario roads, and the boundary of the Tohono O’odham San Xavier District.

Much of the open space is state trust land, which by law must be sold or leased at auction to the highest bidders – almost always private development interests.

On June 2, the Pima County Board of Supervisors will discuss the establishment of a Southwest Benefit Area, a specific geographical area in which development impact fees collected from builders must be spent on transportation projects made necessary by new growth.

A typical development impact fee for a new single-family home would be about $10,220, according the Southwest Infrastructure Plan.

Creation of a Southwest Benefit Area will involve revising boundaries for the existing San Xavier and Avra Valley benefit areas.

Board members also will direct planning staff to look at existing benefit areas for possible amendments to boundaries, needed projects, project costs and changes to existing fees.

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On the Web

Pima County Development Impact Fee Benefit Areas

www.dot.pima.gov/transsys/impactfees

Q: I missed the Eta Aquarid meteors earlier this month. Will there be another good meteor shower that I can see soon?

A: Not until this summer. Usually the best and most predictable shooting star show is the Perseid meteor shower in August, but that is being supplanted by the Geminids around Dec. 13-14. This year the Perseids peak on the nights of Aug. 11-12 and 12-13, but the moon will interfere after 10:30 p.m. on the peak night of Aug. 12-13. If it’s cloudy on those nights, you can still see some Perseid meteors on the nights of Aug. 10-11 and 13-14, even through moonlight.

The Tucson Police Department is accepting applications for its Citizens’ Police Academy, scheduled to run from May 20 to Aug. 19.

The academy is designed to educate community leaders about the department and its operations and to nurture a partnership between academy participants and department commanders and staff.

Enrollment in the 14-week academy is limited to 40 people. Apply online at tpdinternet.tucsonaz.gov or call Officer Eduardo Castillo at 792-5211, Ext. 1116.

Deadline for applications is Wednesday.

Head to Swan Park on Saturday evening to celebrate its new playground and to watch “Madagascar 2″ on a three-story-high inflatable screen.

Cox Communications is hosting the free movie from 6-8 p.m. at the park, 1700 S. Swan Road. The 5.53-acre park also has barbecue grills and picnic sites.

Robert Nickla prepares clinical samples submitted for influenza testing at the Arizona State Laboratory in Phoenix.

Editor’s note: Judy Carlock catches you up on the week’s news – with her own spin.

Flu, shmoo. And closing the borders? What a hoot. If we knew how to do that, we would have done it already.

So ran my first reactions to the sight of masked Mexicans and global coverage about the spread of a pretty ordinary disease.

By coincidence, I was reading a book about Ebola while the current outbreak of influenza was speedily spreading worldwide. Flu looks pretty mild compared to a disease that makes you bleed from the nipples.

Then I started looking at it from the virus’s point of view. Mexico City: What a great place to hatch an epidemic. It’s a teeming, temperate travel hub; sophisticated, but with slums that still lack decent sanitation.

Maybe we really did dodge a bullet. Even if this bug proves relatively mild, flu is extremely contagious. It mutates faster than vaccines can be developed. Somebody could tinker on purpose: germ warfare.

Mexico’s containment measures ought to wipe out any notion that our southern neighbors are a bunch of rubes. Science was all over this. Good.

On the other hand, when I last visited the capital – the smog alone was enough to make me sick.

Tucson Citizen flu page

Flu overhyped? Some say officials ‘cried swine’

PORT SUPPORT: In shipping, time is money. Big containers move by barge, truck or train, hauling stuff all over the globe. The City Council heard this week about a plan to turn Tucson into a major transportation hub.

It already is, if you count dope and illegal immigrants.

Like a lot of ideas, this one has been kicking around awhile. The devil is in the details: an Interstate 10 bypass, a big railroad yard near Picacho Peak, improvements on the Sonoran coast.

Major travel hubs don’t happen by accident. It takes a strategic location, political will and, above all, an opportunity for shippers to pinch pennies from, say, the Panama Canal or Long Beach, Calif.

As for the desirability of this dream – see above.

City Council likes pitch to make Tucson inland port, transportation hub

BLOG WATCH: The Citizen sports editor blogged about the possibility the University of Arizona could acquire a prime recruit Lance Stephenson, relying mainly on various Web sites.

He groaned, though, at seeing a rumor elevated to prime real estate on our home page at www.tucsoncitizen.com.

See, he hadn’t done any substantive reporting. To him, that meant calling people who know things, pumping them for information, maybe putting a tail on head hoops coach Sean Miller . . .

Recruiting stories tend to be speculative to begin with. After all, often the recruit commits at the last minute. Stephenson could go to Tucson or Turkey. Journalists generally want something new, not a cut and paste job from whoever.com. Newsgathering still takes time. The blog bar is lower.

Cable “news” channels milk the same story all day as panelists sit around gassing.

We do that, too. But generally, we try to be fair. And we hate being wrong.

Senators hear dim forecast for newspapers’ future

Wildcat blog: Getting No. 8 hoops player a possibility

Rivera: Cats may not need Stephenson to succeed

BORDER SECURITY FIRST: I can’t make the intractable issue of illegal immigration go away. One tiny suggestion: An analysis this week said President Obama’s new emphasis on border security dodges the most politically risky part of his plan – “a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.”

Many who deal with the issue make the leap from “they shouldn’t be here” to the main point: Now what?

A piece of symbolism that would go a long way: Omit a path to citizenship. Allow a path to legal status.

Mexico. If you can get past the drug-related beheadings and corruption, it’s a country with a lot of values Americans hold dear.

Illegal immigrants know perfectly well they face deportation.

Many would come and go seasonally, if they could.

My bet: The immigrants, as opposed to the activists, would readily forfeit any chance of citizenship to keep their families together. And it might satisfy some who hate to see bad behavior rewarded.

It wouldn’t end the controversy, but it might tone down the rhetoric. Which is hurting my ears.

Even in print.

Analysis: Obama border security move has political angle

Feds ready to build new ‘virtual fence’ on border, starting in Arizona

Contact Judy Carlock at 573-4608 or jcarlock@tucsoncitizen.com (jcarlock@tucsoncitizen.com).

PHOENIX – Enrollment in Arizona’s Medicaid program is surging because of the recession, with costly implications for the already troubled state budget.

The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System reports that enrollment grew by nearly 102,000 from April 2008 to April 2009, an increase of 11 percent. The increase in April alone was 21,000.

AHCCCS’ budget administrator, Jeffery Tegen, said in a memo distributed this week to Gov. Jan Brewer’s budget staff and the Legislature that the increase is due mostly to “the economic downturn and subsequent job losses.”

Tegen’s memo says the increase will add $253 million of spending to the next state budget, which will cover the fiscal year starting July 1. That budget already faces a projected $3 billion shortfall.

Although almost all of this week’s budget debate split along party lines (Republicans in favor, Democrats opposed), there was one island of tranquility where the warring parties put down their spears and united in a bipartisan rendition of “Kumbaya.”

Bringing us this moment of karmic come-togetherness is freshman Rep. Matt Heinz, D-Tucson. His idea is that the state should reduce by one year the length of time it holds unclaimed property. By doing so, the state could reap a one-time windfall of $40 million to $50 million, he estimates, because it could tap those unclaimed resources a year earlier.

“I know it’s a little gimmicky,” Heinz said in his best aw-shucks voice.

But members of the House Appropriations Committee liked it and adopted it as an amendment. Hey, that’s $40 million less in budget cuts, no small feat for a lawmaker, let alone a freshman.

PHOENIX – University of Arizona medical school professor Yvette Roubideaux is the new director of the Indian Health Service.

The White House says the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed Roubideaux’s nomination Wednesday night.

Roubideaux, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, was an assistant professor in the Department of Family & Community Medicine at UA’s College of Medicine when she was picked by President Obama to head the IHS.

The White House says she has conducted extensive research on American Indian health issues, with a focus on diabetes and Indian health policy.

The IHS provides health care to American Indians.

PHOENIX — Gov. Jan Brewer has selected a former FBI agent as the new director of the state Department of Homeland Security.

Brewer says Gilbert Orrantia’s 27 years with the FBI provides him with valuable experience in counterterrorism and other fields related to his new post.

Since leaving the FBI, Orrantia has served as director of an investigations and consulting firm.

Orrantia is replacing Leesa Berens Morrison. She announced her resignation late last month.

University commencements can sometimes produce widespread ennui among graduates and their well-wishers because of the excruciating length of the ceremonies.

There will be less chance of that rampant boredom at the 140th University of Arizona commencement this year because the undergraduate and graduate ceremonies are being shortened and separated by about 12 hours.

About 1,300 masters, specialist and doctoral degrees will be awarded by UA President Robert N. Shelton at 7:30 p.m. May 15 at McKale Memorial Center.

He’ll return at 8 a.m. May 16 to confer degrees upon the 4,895 undergraduates.

Many of those undergrads will have already participated in convocations at their individual colleges, which begin Wednesday with the College of Humanities graduate convocation.

Alan Weisman, UA associate professor of journalism and Latin American studies and author of “The World Without Us,” will be the keynote speaker at the May 15 ceremony.

Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway Human Transporter, will address the undergraduates May 16 and will receive an honorary degree.

UA will award a number of honorary degrees during the graduate commencement May 15, including:

• Doctor of Humanities to Nadine Mathis Basha, founder of the Children’s Action Alliance and Summa Associates, a management firm specializing in corporate child care and elder care services.

• Doctor of Science to Edward Perry Bass, president of Fine Line Inc. and founding trustee of the Philecology Trust, which funds select nonprofit ecological interests.

• Doctor of Fine Arts to UA alumnus John Kilkenny, executive vice president at Twentieth Century Fox and head of the studio’s visual effects department. Kilkenny is working with UA in exploring the development of the nation’s first professional visual effects production training program.

• Doctor of Letters to Steve W. Lynn, vice president of Tucson Electric Power Co. and a UA alumnus.

• Doctor of Humane Letters to Ned L. Norris Jr., chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation, and member of Shelton’s Native American Advisory Council,

• Doctor of Humane Letters to Cele Peterson, a fashion designer, entrepreneur, founder of the Tucson Children’s Museum and co-founder of Casa de Los Niños, the first crisis nursery in the U.S.

Six students will be honored during the undergraduate ceremony Saturday:

• Merrill P. Freeman Medals will be awarded to Jessica Anderson, a bachelor of science candidate and honors marketing major, and Craig Sheedy, an honors student with a double major in health sciences and molecular biophysics and physiology.

• Robie Gold Medals will be awarded to Joseph Fu, a bachelor of science candidate in molecular biology, microbiology and philosophy, and Justine Schluntz, a member of the UA swim team graduating summa cum laude from the College of Engineering with a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering.

• Robert Logan Nugent Medals will be awarded to Nancy Hernandez, graduating with a bachelor of science dual major in accounting and business economics, and Abraham Itty who will graduate summa cum laude with a bachelor of science degree in molecular and cellular biology and a bachelor of science in health sciences in physiology.

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PCC commencement

Pima Community College, which is commemorating its 40th anniversary this year, will celebrate spring commencement at 7 p.m. May 21 at the Tucson Arena.

Heather Myers will be the keynote speaker for the ceremony, following PCC’s tradition of having a student address the graduating class.

Myers, who will receive an associate of business administration degree, was also the commencement speaker for Aztec Middle College’s first graduating class in 2000. She enrolled in Aztec after having a child at 16 and dropping out of high school. She received a high school diploma while getting college credit.

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Convocations

Their degrees won’t officially be awarded until next weekend, but many University of Arizona graduates will have already attended what, to them, was “graduation” through individual college convocations.

Here are next week’s convocations:

Wednesday:

College of Humanities

Master’s and doctoral candidates, 3 p.m.; Student Union North Ballroom

Thursday:

College of Education, 9 a.m.; Centennial Hall

College of Science, 1 p.m.; Centennial Hall

College of Fine Arts, 5:30 p.m.; Centennial Hall

Friday:

College of Pharmacy, 9 a.m.; Centennial Hall

College of Humanities, undergraduates, 10 a.m.; Student Union North Ballroom

Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, 11 a.m.; Temple of Music and Art

Eller College of Management, undergraduates, 1 p.m.; McKale Center

College of Nursing, 1 p.m.; Centennial Hall

College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2 p.m.; Tucson Convention Center Arena

University College, 3 p.m.; Integrated Learning Center

College of Optical Sciences, 5 p.m.; Integrated Learning Center 130

College of Medicine, candidates for a degree in medicine, 5 p.m.; Centennial Hall

Saturday:

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, 11 a.m. at Centennial Hall

College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, 11 a.m.; Crowder Hall

College of Medicine, physiology undergraduates, 11 a.m.; Student Union Memorial Center

College of Law, 2 p.m.; Centennial Hall

Eller College of Management, graduate students, 5 p.m.; Centennial Hall

UA South will celebrate two commencements for its bachelor and master’s degrees students. The first will be at 4 p.m. May 14 at the Buena Performing Arts Center in Sierra Vista. The second will be at 3 p.m. May 15 at the UA Science and Technology Park, 9040 S. Rita Road.

For more information on each college convocation and specifics about the College of Engineering, Multicultural Affairs and Student Success and ROTC visit: commencement.arizona.edu/collegeconvocations

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Sick? Stay home

The executive director of UA Campus Health Services has posted instructions to graduates regarding family and friends attending next weekend’s commencement ceremonies.

Harry McDermott posted a message on the UA Commencement Web site asking students to request that ill family and friends not travel to Tucson. In addition, he reminded Tucsonans not to attend commencement ceremonies if they are ill.

SIERRA VISTA – Officials say generally calm winds helped keep a southeastern Arizona wildfire near Sierra Vista in check Wednesday, a day after it destroyed three homes and burned a man.

Authorities had feared that winds would pick up and drive the human-caused Canelo fire northeast again.

The blaze was 25 percent contained at 4,000 acres. It destroyed five outbuildings and six vehicles Tuesday. Residents evacuated from some of about 50 homes in a subdivision near Fort Huachuca returned Wednesday.

A spokesman at the Maricopa Burn Center in Phoenix listed the man airlifted with third-degree burns as in guarded condition.

Officials say crews made significant progress in controlling hot spots and in digging containment lines.

Tucsonan due to complete last leg of 800-mile walk

Tucsonan Sirena Dufault, who has fibromyalgia, plans to complete an 800-mile hike of the Arizona Trail on Tuesday.

When she set out to hike the 800-mile Arizona Trail last spring, Sirena Dufault worried that she might not finish.

The daunting trail stretches from Utah to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Tucsonan Dufault’s concern stemmed from her decade-long battle with fibromyalgia, a little-understood chronic pain disorder.

“I was a little hesitant to publicize it because I didn’t know how far I could go,” Dufault said this week. “Now I can comfortably do a 15-mile day with a big pack, no problem.”

Tuesday – on national Fibromyalgia Awareness Day – the 35-year-old will make a final, eight-mile hike north of Oracle to complete the trail, trudging from the Tiger Mine Trail head to the American Flag Trail head.

Dufault kept an online journal throughout her trek, which she made mostly by herself in one- to five-day trips. Tuesday’s leg will mark the 80th day Dufault has spent on the trail.

Dufault said she hopes her success will inspire the 10 million Americans who suffer from the disorder. “There’s not a whole lot of positive information out there about people getting their lives back after fibromyalgia.”

Fibromyalgia’s symptoms include chronic, widespread body pain, according to the National Fibromyalgia Association. Symptoms can stem from an acute illness or injury, as in Dufault’s case. Her diagnosis came in 1998, a year after she was hit by a car as she crossed a street. For months afterward, even as her initial injuries healed, Dufault’s pain and fatigue worsened.

“I saw her probably at her worst,” said Angi Edge, a nurse and massage therapist who treated Dufault after her diagnosis and became a fast friend. “So many people give up on themselves. They become their disease. She was just not going to give up.”

Dufault’s pain has not flared up in a major way in the past three years, she said. “I attribute that to being very, very active.”

For her next big adventure, Dufault might hike the Tonto Trail in the Grand Canyon. She walked 25 miles of that 90-mile trail last winter.

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Read about Sirena Dufault’s experiences hiking the Arizona Trail in her online journal: www.aztrail4fms.org.

The seaport of Guaymas, Son., shown in a 2005 file photo, could be an important part of making Tucson an international port.

Tucson could be a major international transportation hub, but if the city’s serious about that, there should be one person in charge, the region’s economic development group said in a recent report.

Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities, or TREO, advocates the hiring of an inland port director and creating a new organization whose mission would be to advance “Puerto Nuevo.”

The director’s salary would be paid by business contributions, said Sarah Smallhouse, who headed the advisory committee that helped write the report. “Think of it sort of like a trade association,” she said.

The idea – in the works since 2005 – is to use Tucson’s logistically convenient geography to its economic advantage.

The city sits at the intersection of east-west and north-south interstates I-10 and I-19 and a similar convergence of rail lines.

About 72,000 of the city’s jobs are already in the transportation sector, the report states.

But to be a major player, TREO says, the city needs to look at improvements related to to trucking, air freight and ocean access.

Key components of TREO’s plan involve building an I-10 bypass, setting up a larger rail yard near Marana and improving infrastructure connecting Tucson to the seaport of Guaymas, Mexico.

The report also recommends the development of food processing plants because of the tons of Mexican agricultural products shipped daily through the city.

Most of the related development is anticipated along Valencia Road.

Smallhouse said the project is realistic despite the recession and should be the domain of business owners, not government.

A paid director could coordinate the work of a volunteer board, she said, characterizing the port as likely more “virtual” or “promotional” than “bricks and mortar.”

That was music to the ears of the City Council, in the midst of a budget process that will undoubtedly involve millions of dollars in both spending cuts and new taxes.

“I think this is really wonderful,” Councilman Steve Leal said. “There could be all kinds of jobs in this.”

Laura Shaw, TREO’s vice president of corporate and community affairs, said the process of hiring an inland port director had not yet begun.