Cash-flush Arizona lawmakers seek options to budget impasse

(KYMA, KECY/ AP NEWS) - Flush with cash and weeks into an impasse over the coming year’s state budget, Arizona lawmakers are now looking at unusual solutions to try to break the logjam.

Republicans who hold just one-vote majorities in both the Senate and House began openly talking about enacting a “continuation budget,” that funds government at only the current year’s level plus inflation adjustments last week.

The plan surfaced in the House on Monday where the current budget is $12.8 billion, and Governor Doug Ducey had proposed increases for the coming fiscal year to being spending to $14.3 billion.

The new plan would leave a whopping amount of surplus cash sitting in the state treasury, even after accounting for income tax cuts enacted by the legislature.

The actual tax cuts are on hold because opponents collected enough signatures to block them until voters can approve or reject them in November and the Arizona Supreme Court is hearing an appeal of that decision Tuesday.

GOP lawmakers hope to avoid the referendum by repealing the tax cuts and re-enacting them.