EDITORIAL

Chasing the latest crisis is no way to run a state

Editorial board
The Republic | azcentral.com
Caltrans workers on Tuesday, July 21, assess the damage to the Tex Wash bridge which shut down Interstate 10 between Coachella and Blythe in California.
  • An Interstate 10 bridge collapses, refocusing attention on how much money Arizona has swept from the highway fund
  • Arizona often budgets by crisis, making the latest crisis its priority
  • A full, public discussion of how the state should allocate resources is overdue

As Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” movie trilogy speeds to its climax, the evil eye of Sauron casts a spotlight on the army of men gathered at his gates. Battle breaks out. And then the ring that would cement his power falls into a pit of lava. Sauron’s eye quickly swivels toward this new crisis, too late to do any good.

This is largely how Arizona state government budgets: chasing the crisis of the day.

A bridge collapses on Interstate 10 in California, and the spotlight swings to how much money has been swept from highway maintenance and construction.

Drought spreads, and the eye swings to how many staffers the Department of Water Resources has lost.

Children die under social workers’ noses, and the eye swings to plowing under one department and replacing it with a new, better-funded agency.

A new school year is about to begin, with hundreds of classrooms lacking a teacher, and the eye swings back to how badly Arizona underfunds its schools.

EDITORIAL: Ducey, DeWit both right on school funding

Perhaps it is the nature of a political system that the latest crisis gets all the attention. Maybe it reflects the way too many families handle their own finances. But it is a short-sighted and ultimately counterproductive way to allocate limited resources.

Arizona has many needs, but not enough money to fully take care of all of them. Thoughtful choices have to be made. Unfortunately, decisions are more likely to be made in the vacuum of crisis management.

Arizona is still struggling to handle child-abuse cases correctly.

Consider the debate that led to the creation of the Department of Child Safety, provoked by the discovery of thousands of uninvestigated reports of abuse and neglect. On top of a number of gut-turning child deaths, there was a great political urgency to fix this problem. Discussion focused on how much money a new agency would need to get the job done.

EDITORIAL: We're not done fixing child safety

But no one brought up trade-offs. What would the state have to give up to shift more money into child safety? Did that make sense?

Or consider how the current state budget came to be, essentially via private negotiations between Gov. Doug Ducey and Senate President Andy Biggs, ratified by dark-of-night legislative votes. Public discussion of the state’s priorities? There was none.

Zero-based budgeting can be little more than a gimmick. But the underlying principle is sound: If you were creating an organization or government from scratch, where would your priorities lie?

Arizona needs to have that discussion in a smarter way than it has done so far.

Education would undoubtedly be the public’s top priority, but what would follow? Roads and highways; child safety; public safety and prisons; water expertise; environmental protection; economic development? Have some state programs outlived their purpose? Should others be beefed up?

Education is undoubtedly Arizona's top priority. But what follows?

Does the state collect enough revenue to deliver on its top priorities? Do tax breaks return public benefits to justify their existence, or are they little better than favors to friends?

These aren’t easy questions, nor will everyone answer them the same way. But they’re critical questions that need to be debated thoughtfully and publicly.

Otherwise, we’ll continue to chase the crisis of the day. Child safety today, bridges tomorrow, teacher shortages next week. Sauron’s eye would never rest.