The Senate dines as the House dallies

• House Majority Leader Steve Montenegro, R-Litchfield Park, downplayed the delay
• State leaders are debating a $9.58 billion budget

6:30 pm: Dinner break!

The dinner bell has rung in the state Senate. And senators have a nice dining opportunity -- they're not due back at the Capitol until 9 p.m.

Meanwhile, the House continues to hold behind-the-scenes talks with no announced dinner break. Reps. T.J Shope, R-Coolidge, Doug Coleman, R-Apache Junction, and Jeff Weninger, R-Chandler, were en route to the House parking lot to grab some food, but were called back.

House Majority Leader Steve Montenegro, R-Litchfield Park, suggested the House, unlike the Senate, has little time for 2 1/2-hour dinners.

"We work here," he said. "We are doing the people's work."

Inside, Republican lawmakers were moving in and out of House Speaker David Gowan's second-floor office suite as budget talks continued.

Outside, lobbyists were trying to extract information from anyone they could reach about the status of budget work. Onlookers were swapping theories about when the budget would emerge: later Friday night, perhaps Saturday after the state GOP convention to pick presidential delegates, maybe next week.

Paul Senseman, a lobbyist and former spokesman for Gov. Jan Brewer and Dana Wolfe Naimark, president and CEO of the Children's Action Alliance, high-fived each other when they realized they shared the same prediction on when the budget would get a vote: Not Friday.

4:30 pm: A piecemeal approach 

The House divided a 14-bill budget package into separate calendars for each bill, with a few exceptions.

The intent appears to be to get work started on parts of the package where there is enough agreement to get 31 votes.

The bills had been broken into three separate calendars. There are now 16 separate calendars.

House leaders set a 4 p.m. deadline for any amendments to House Bill 2697, which is Gov. Doug Ducey's $8 million tax cut and the HB 2698, which deals with budget procedures.

The deadline also applies to HB 2705, which deals with human services, such as the Department of Child Safety and social-welfare programs.

It is unclear when actual debate will begin.

What you need to know about the 'deal'

School funding issues have made a deal on the state's $9.58 billion budget elusive. The K-12 funding package while involving about 0.5 percent of the state’s budget, takes on outsize importance with voters weighing in on Proposition 123, the ballot measure to increase education funding by $3.5 billion over a decade.

A deal brokered Thursday night would provide $51 million for education to cover costs for school construction in the Agua Fria and Chandler districts, to pay for shifting enrollment figures, and help avert cuts to small charter schools. The package also would have increased the amount of money given to district-sponsored charter schools to ensure they don't lose money.

Some Republican lawmakers are wrangling for even more of those dollars while other GOP members wanted to hold that spending down.

After adjusting for inflation and overall enrollment growth, the original Republican budget proposal would cut $21 million from the state's public district and charter schools.

The budget also includes:

• A $26 million tax-cut package that includes a proposal from Ducey that would cost $8 million next year and $16 million every year after that. The proposal over two years increases the amount businesses can deduct from the purchase of some property or equipment.
• $13 million in ongoing money for universities, as well as $19 million in one-time funds. The funding includes $5 million for "economic freedom schools," backed by donors that include Charles Koch Foundation. 
• $66 million for state and $30 million for cities and counties for road projects. The state money will combine with federal money to widen Interstate 10 near Picacho Peak, widen Interstate 10 near the Nogales border station and pave a portion of a road that connects the Hopi and Navajo reservations.
• Child welfare: An additional $19.5 million for support services, $6.4 million for adoptions, $10.3 million for out-of-home placements in foster homes and $13.8 million for investigations and operations. It also includes $2.7 million to continue to contract with outside organizations to work on the backlog of cases of abuse and neglect that have not had services provided to the child or parents for two months or that have not been worked on for at least 60 days.
• $1.6 million for a new community correction center for offenders released under parole or community supervision who commit technical violations. The 100-bed community correction center would give offenders another chance, and would offer drug treatment with housing and services to help them transition back into the community. The budget includes $17 million for 1,000 extra beds at an Eloy private prison run by Corrections Corporation of America that opens in September.
• $22 million to get started a Border Strike Task Force to partner with federal and county law enforcement to fight drug and human smugglers, and $8 million each year for continuing operations.
• A tax break for specially accredited private universities, notably Grand Canyon University, that is estimated to be worth between $350,000 and $2.6 million in fiscal 2018. It would reduce their property tax rate from 18 percent to 5 percent. The reduction would effectively raise property taxes for others nearby or lead local governments to collect less.