Arizona Governor Doug Ducey delivered his 2019 State of the State address on Monday. He praised Arizona’s growing economy, addressed some of the state’s issues, and urged lawmakers to work together.
In the first State of the State address of his second term, Ducey welcomed the state’s new public servants and thanked the returning members of the Legislature.
Ducey began his address by confronting the issue that is at the top of his list: securing Arizona’s water future.
The governor called for the state Legislature to compromise, and ratify the Drought Contingency Plan, saying that Arizona’s 19-year drought is going to get worse before it gets better. Although this isn’t “an issue that leads the news,” Ducey said he was asked about it the most, especially by those in rural Arizona.
“No one stakeholder is going to get everything they want. Everyone is going to have to give. And I’ve been impressed by the willingness of those involved to do just that.”
Ducey spoke proudly on the cutting of over 1,000 regulations. He urged the state Legislature to “chop the stacks and stacks of statutes down, so that the laws make sense and are relevant to the Arizona of today.”
The governor called for the elimination of legislative immunity, which was described as the “most unnecessary law of them all”. He added that no one is above the law.
The Safe Arizona Schools plan was addressed by Ducey as well. This plan would provide police officers on school campuses, as well as more school counselors and improved background checks. He commented that this year’s budget, which will be issued on Friday, will include enough money to provide a police officer in every school that needs one.
“This is simply too important an issue to let partisan politics and special interests get in the way. We’ve got a responsibility to do something for our kids — and we’ve got to do it this session.”
The proposed budget will include more dollars for the Arizona Teacher’s Academy. This program addresses Arizona’s teacher shortage, and provides scholarships to those graduating from an Arizona university, who are planning on teaching in state public schools.
Ducey continued on to speak of Arizona’s “booming” economy, as almost 300,000 jobs have been created in the last four years.
With unemployment forecasted to drop even lower than since “before you knew what a hashtag was”, as Ducey quipped, it is important to learn from mistakes of the past, he said.
To learn from these mistakes, and to secure Arizona’s future and prepare for the unexpected, Ducey proposed an increase the state’s rainy day fund to a balance of $1 billion dollars, a record-breaking number. The plan was described as a “thoughtful, prudent and fiscally-conservative approach.”
“Washington could learn a lot from us,” Ducey added, saying that the federal government, for decades, has been broken. “Let’s put Arizona first.”
Haley Lorenzen is a student reporter at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School in Phoenix, where she majors in journalism and studies Graphic Information Technology at the Polytechnic School. She plans to focus in photography and videography.
