Arizona faces a $1 billion deficit as the state Legislature opens the 2024 session - eviltoast
A steep budget deficit caused by plummeting tax revenues and escalating school voucher costs will be top of mind as Democratic Gov.

A steep budget deficit caused by plummeting tax revenues and escalating school voucher costs will be in focus Monday as Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs and the Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature return for a new session at the state Capitol.

The Legislative new year officially begins in the afternoon with the governor’s annual State of the State address The goal is to wrap up the legislative session within 100 days, but lawmakers typically go until May or June, especially when there are difficult problems to negotiate like a budget shortfall.

The state had a budget surplus of $1.8 billion a year ago. But it now has a shortfall of about $400 million for the current fiscal year and another $450 million shortfall the year after.

A tax cut approved by legislators in 2021 and signed into law by Hobbs’ Republican predecessor, Gov. Doug Ducey, replaced the state’s graduated income tax with a flat tax that took full effect last year. Arizona subsequently saw a decrease of over $830 million in revenues from income taxes, marking a nearly 30% decline from July through November.

  • ThrowawayInTheYear23@lemmy.world
    92·
    10 months ago

    Like a less popular sport like the NHL is going to be really profiable. Getting rid of the flat tax and school vouchers would be more effective.

    • agitatedpotato@lemmy.world
      19·
      10 months ago

      Tax code change wouldn’t really be very effective for an arena not on state land though so for the arena I was talking about I disagree. How much tax does the dump give them in it’s stead? Seems like a straight downgrade.

      • ThrowawayInTheYear23@lemmy.world
        81·
        10 months ago

        Sounds lke the voters dodged a moneysink.

        Over the last 26 seasons, the Arizona Coyotes have at times been bankrupt, ownerless, a ward of the N.H.L., the subject of relocation rumors, and, more recently, in a prickly relationship with the owners of their home arena. The team has long struggled to draw fans to its suburban rink,

        https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/sports/hockey/arizona-coyotes-glendale-nhl.html

        Arizona’s terrible NHL team is begging voters for $200 million to build a permanent home, but stadiums are consistently huge money pits

        https://www.businessinsider.com/arizona-coyotes-tempe-new-arena-vote-funding-sports-stadiums-taxpayers-2023-1?international=true&r=US&IR=T

        • agitatedpotato@lemmy.world
          16·
          10 months ago

          From your own source

          evicted from its previous home in Glendale, can find a way out of this morass with a $2.1 billion plan to turn 1.5 million tons of garbage and surrounding area into a new arena with two hotels, a music venue, and housing.

          Man how dare they ask for 200 million for a 2 billion plan that included cleaning up the area themselves and even adding housing instead of putting that burden on the taxpayers where it now rests again. Brilliant move. Its gonna cost as much or more to remove the trash and make the land available for any kind of non dump use.

          • ThrowawayInTheYear23@lemmy.world
            51·
            10 months ago

            Economists who have researched this topic for decades have found that the rosy economic impacts teams promise rarely pan out. “Though findings have become more nuanced, recent analyses continue to confirm the decades-old consensus of very limited economic impacts of professional sports teams and stadiums,” the Kennesaw State University professor J.C. Bradbury and his coauthors concluded in a February 2022 review of more than three decades of studies on economic impacts of stadiums. Even when adding in social benefits from stadium investments, welfare improvements from hosting teams tend to fall well short of how much the government spent to obtain it. Put simply, the authors found, “the large subsidies commonly devoted to constructing professional sports venues are not justified as worthwhile public investments.”

            • agitatedpotato@lemmy.world
              15·
              10 months ago

              You’re repeating general findings and applying them to a deal with specifics you refuse to understand or even respond too. 200 million barely covers the restoration of the landfill, and more of this offer was privately funded than any other stadium offers period. There simply has not been a better deal for the cities in any major american professional sport than this one, so if you really dislike stadiums seeping public funds maybe support the ones that use less of it. Still waiting to see how much it’s gonna cost taxpayers to clean and reclaim that land on their own burden.

              Rich people are not going to stop building stadiums, the government will not stop subsidizing rich peoples anything. This whole debacle says ‘dont bother sweetening the deal, stick with what was working because if they’re gonna say no, they will say no.’