It's your money, but you're apparently not allowed to get any hints at how they're spending it.
Lawmakers in the Arizona House and Senate this week have drafted a budget plan which apparently contains some $650 million in budget cuts.
But that's about all we know. House and Senate Republicans aren't talking about. Neither is Governor Brewer.
What we do know is that it apparently contains about $220 million in cuts to K-12 education, which the governor has already opposed, along with some creative accounting the governor called "magic."
It apparently does not include a temporary sales tax increase which the governor had wanted and which we really know won't really be temporary.
You have to wonder about the strategy of this whole process. The clock is winding down and legislative representatives are meeting behind closed doors, not giving a hint about what a final budget plan has in store.
Perhaps they don't want to incite panic and protest, as programs for kids, the elderly and special needs students fall on the chopping block. Maybe they don't want to anger teachers who might not have a job next year. Maybe they don't want to worry the folks who won't get health insurance through the state.
What they're doing isn't illegal; it just isn't very forthright. Arizona, like most states, has an open meetings law which mandates the public's business be done in public. But since a handful of legislative leaders fails to constitute a quorum, they're allowed to meet in secret.
But the spirit of that law, not to mention the cause of public business, isn't served very well by backroom deal-making.
Mark my words: the budget will eventually pass, in the dead of night, with barely a chance for the public to pour over the fine print. Only later will we learn the consequences, when the money is already spent.
