Arizona State and Local Government Documents Collection

The ADOA Building System was established concurrent with those of the Arizona Board of Regents' and the Arizona Department of Transportation's Building Systems. Each of these building systems is responsible for computing building renewal needs for each fiscal year according to a renewal formula selected by the Joint Committee on Capital Review and for allocating building renewal monies appropriated to agencies within each of these three building systems. The ADOA Building System is the largest of the three and includes buildings owned by multiple agencies, whose structures appear in this annual inventory.

ADOA revises its building system inventory each year to include structure acquisitions and deletions as reported by building system agencies, escalations or de-escalations of structure replacement values, and two fiscal years of forecasted building renewal requirements for capital funding consideration. If available, the inventory also lists a structure's construction class, year of construction, fire suppression/sprinkler system status, occupancy category, and other allied information.

The building inventory is utilized by a variety of entities, including State Risk Management, the State Fire Marshal, the Governor's Office of Strategic Planning and Budgeting, and the Arizona State Legislature's Joint Legislative Budget Committee.

The Director of the Arizona Department of Administration provides an annual report to the Governor and the Legislature on the status of the state’s human resources and the operation of the state human resources system. The report includes information on the following:
• All state employees including the executive, legislative and judicial branch agencies.
• The number of employees affected by and reasons for turnover within state service.
• Information concerning employee compensation during the preceding year.
• Overtime pay requirements of all state agencies.
• Other information as determined by the Director.

Every September, the Arizona Department of Administration provides an Advisory Recommendation to the Governor and the Legislature. This document provides an analysis of the state's current compensation levels compared to other public and private sector employers, and a review of the critical factors that must be considered when reviewing compensation strategies. These factors include turnover rates, retirement projections, economic forecasts, and projected market movement. The report concludes with a recommendation to the salary plan for employees in state service.

Education decisions are among the most important choices people ever make. So we were surprised and disappointed to see an article so loosely reasoned and reckless in its conclusions as “Five Reasons to Skip College” published in Blank Slate at Forbes.com on April 18, 2006. The article never provides a numerical assessment of the costs and benefits of going to college, uses statistics inappropriately and in a way that biases the conclusions against college, contains conceptual errors on how to evaluate the return on a college education, and greatly exaggerates the only substantive criticism of typical evaluations of the financial worth of a college degree.

Volume I: Facts
Analyses of Arizona state government finance, using data of the Arizona Joint Legislative Budget Committee, and of the combined finances of all state and local governments within Arizona, using data of the U.S. Census Bureau. A historical perspective is provided for both datasets. For combined state and local government finance, comparisons are made to other states and to the national average. In addition, other measures of the tax burden by state are examined.

Volume II: Concepts and Issues
Addresses the conceptual and empirical relationships between taxes, government revenue, and economic growth. Also discusses current issues specific to Arizona state government finance. This is a revised version of the report "Tax Reductions, the Economy, and the Deficit in the Arizona State Government General Fund," incorporating new and updated material.

Volume III: Options for Managing the Arizona State General Fund
Presents options and offers recommendations for managing the Arizona state government general fund. The near-term budget deficit is addressed as well as ways to prevent budget deficits from recurring every time economic growth slows.

The state government general fund shortfall in the current fiscal year is projected to be between about $550 million and $1 billion. This shortfall will need to be eliminated through spending cuts and/or revenue enhancements. The Legislature has demonstrated a preference for spending cuts. However demand does not decline during a recession for most public-sector services, including university services. Any reduction in funding for universities will have a negative and direct effect. A reduction in state government spending for universities of around $200 million would cause direct and indirect job losses of approximately 4,000. A substantial decrease in state government funding for universities will have negative consequences beyond these short-term effects.