Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Arizona Senate budget plan


The Arizona State Senate released it's FY12 budget proposal late this afternoon. The Senate may vote on it as quickly as tomorrow (Wednesday).

A few quick geo-related items in the Senate plan -
  • it supports the Governor's plan to consolidate the Dept. of Mines & Mineral Resources with AZGS and transfer $100K to AZGS to digitize mining and mineral resource files; $126K would go to the Historical Society which took over the Mines & Mineral Resources Museum last year
  • the Dept. of Water Resources would replace $795K of state funds with new cities fees
  • it appears that over $15 million will be 'swept' from a dozen programs in the Dept. of Environmental Quality and transferred to the General Fund