This report documents the efforts of the Arizona Department of Transportation to implement the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials DARWin‐ME pavement design and rehabilitation guide. As part of this implementation, the research team also prepared a practical stand‐alone user’s guide that provides guidance for obtaining inputs, conducting design, and establishing the recommended pavement design.

The Mexican gray wolf subspecies was listed as endangered in 1976. In 1998 a nonessential experimental population was established in New Mexico and Arizona. Eleven captive-born and reared animals were released into the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area. In June 2007, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service contracted with D.J. Case and Associates to assist in planning and implementing public input for a scoping process to identify issues to consider in developing alternatives preparatory to development of a new Environmental Impact Statement for the Mexican gray wolf introduction program.

The purpose of the stabilization fund is to reduce the fluctuations in general fund revenue caused by the economic cycle. These fluctuations result in large budget surpluses in some years and large deficits in other years. Without considering the structural deficit, the budget stabilization fund almost certainly will not have the funding necessary to offset the cyclical reduction in revenue that will occur during the next recession.

This is a summary of several reports related to government finance in Arizona that have been produced by the Office of the University Economist since December 2008. Some new information has been added in an attempt to provide a complete picture. The format of this report is a brief summary by issue, sometimes accompanied by a table or chart. References are provided to the report and the page number where additional detail can be found.

A landmark assessment of infrastructure needs in Arizona was produced by the L. William Seidman Research Institute in May 2008 for the Arizona Investment Council (AIC): "Infrastructure Needs and Funding Alternatives for Arizona: 2008-2032", that addressed infrastructure needs in four categories: energy, telecommunications, transportation, and water and wastewater. The information from the AIC report is a major input to the report that follows. Other types of infrastructure — most notably education, health care, and public safety — also are analyzed here to provide a more complete picture of infrastructure needs in Arizona. The goals of this report are to place Arizona’s infrastructure needs into national and historical contexts, to identify the changing conditions in infrastructure provision that make building Arizona’s infrastructure in the future a more problematic proposition than in the past, and to provide projections of the possible costs of providing infrastructure in Arizona over the next quarter century.

The educational attainment of Arizona’s workforce is less than the national average and has deteriorated over time relative to the U.S. average. Job quality and average earnings in Arizona also are below the national average. These three factors — job quality, earnings, and educational attainment — are interrelated. On average, the higher the educational attainment of a worker, the higher are his or her earnings. The largest increase by far occurs with the completion of a university degree. In Arizona, the average earnings of those with a college degree are approximately $28,140 (73 percent) higher than those with only some college. Thus, working individuals financially benefit from enhancing their educational attainment.