The legislature is moving forward with sending a budget to the Governor.  Much is yet to be done to remove provisions harmful to law enforcement in the House, Senate and Governor's budget proposals.  Expect a veto.

Many of you may have seen the media reports describing the Senate's night-long budget debate.  The Senate early Thursday approved a Republican budget-balancing proposal that faces a possible veto by Governor Jan Brewer if it reaches her desk.

The Senate's approval of a budget proposal sent it to the House, which is scheduled to consider it Thursday afternoon. Passage by both chambers would send it to the Governor. Brewer has said the lawmakers' proposal appears unbalanced, but several Republican legislative leaders expressed hope Wednesday that Brewer would accept their proposal.

Your participation in our FOP grassroots email campaign has resulted in significant progress in our effort to remove the harmful provision which would increase PSPRS/CORP employee contribution rates.  Last week, in a matter of hours, several hundred FOP members used our web based email form to communicate directly with all 90 legislators. We know the FOP email campaign got their attention. Most importantly, because those FOP members who participated in the email campaign forwarded the reply messages they received, we could track changes in position.

Many influential legislators in both the House and Senate have directly stated that they will work to remove the PSPRS/CORP employee contribution rate increase from both the House and Senate versions of the budget. We believe the modification of the budget is underway now.  We also know that a group of Representatives told the Speaker of the House that it is a bad idea for the House version to retain the provision because the minor savings is not worth upsetting "all police officers". 

With all this said, we believe the budget votes scheduled for Thursday afternoon does not mean progress has been made to find common ground between the Legislature and the Governor.  Most likely, the current legislative budget moving toward a floor vote, may just be a test of the Governor's willingness to veto a plan she feels may cut too deep.

Which brings us to the Governor's proposal.  The Governor's budget proposal still has the PSPRS/CORP employee contribution rate increase included.

It would not be appropriate for me to tell you we are "out of the woods" when so many documents floating around the legislature still include the PSPRS employee contribution rate and other harmful provisions.  Thanks to your efforts in contacting the legislature, we do think great progress has been made.