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Local Transportation Assistance Funds, full day kindergarten funding, and two years of cash benefits available through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families were also eliminated.

Districts are considering eliminating extracurricular activities like art, music and sports programs to pay for full-day kindergarten.
In Scottsdale, Superintendent Gary Catalani will increase class sizes and lay off teachers to make ends meet.

"For Scottsdale Unified, it means that we're going to be asking our teachers across all grade levels to do more with a larger class size,” he said.

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The plan calls to cut $385 million from the state healthcare system, eliminate the state Department of Juvenile Corrections and eliminate funding for the Office of Tourism.

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Under the new budget, the program has been eliminated and the 38,000 children who are currently enrolled will no longer have health insurance, according to Monica Coury, Intergovernmental Relations Assistant Director for AHCCCS.

"Our concern is that would mean more emergency room visits in hospitals and things that might have otherwise been avoided with routine medical care,” she said.

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Susan Jones, a Cochise Elementary School parent in Scottsdale, said some parents felt betrayed because they voted for a K-3 budget override last fall, believing it would keep class sizes small, and for the state sales-tax increase in May to preserve teachers' jobs.

Districts increased class sizes at all grade levels. Scottsdale has a class size cap of 30 students in kindergarten, and several schools are at that limit. One fourth-grade class has 34 students.

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The escape of three dangerous inmates who snuck out of a private prison in Arizona operated by MTC and who then went on a terror rampage is drawing world-wide attention to the dangers and security risks of private prisons. The three inmates, all convicted murderers, escaped from a minimum to medium-security private prison in Kingman, AZ in late July. While two have been apprehended, a third suspected of murdering a couple while on the loose, is still at large.

It is believed security was so lax at the MTC prison that a girlfriend of one of the escaped convicts was able to throw wire cutters over the fence to aid them in their break out. “This was a tragedy waiting to happen,” said OCSEA President Eddie L. Parks. “Housing dangerous felons in a medium security private prison without qualified, armed staff, is beyond outrageous.” The Arizona Department of Corrections has come out publically about concerns it has with the staff and staff training at the private prison. Like in Ohio, Correction Officers in Arizona’s private prisons do not carry firearms and are not weapons trained by law.

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Tthere is one business that could gain from the implementation of SB 1070 and similar immigration measures. The private prison industry houses illegal immigrant detainees for the federal government. Those companies could gain contracts with state and local agencies to house illegal immigrants arrested for state violations.

Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA, holds the federal contract to house detainees in Arizona. The company bills $11 million per month. Two of Brewer’s top advisers have connections to CCA.

Paul Senseman is the governor’s deputy chief of staff. He is also a former lobbyist for CCA. His wife is listed as a current lobbyist for the company.

Chuck Coughlin is one of the governor’s policy advisers and her campaign chairman. Coughlin’s company, HighGround Public Affairs Consultants, currently lobbies for CCA.

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Brewer made up a story from whole-cloth about her father bravely sacrificing his life, during World War II fighting Nazis in Germany. Such a record of service would certainly be commendable, if true, except for the fact that Brewer’s father spent the war working in a munitions factory in Nevada . And he died not from fighting Nazis, but from lung cancer ten-years after the war ended. Erm, how can Brewer explain away this whopper? A spokesperson says Brewer’s tale should not be taken, literally.

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