Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signs $11.8 billion state budget
May 31, 2019, 9:00 AM | Updated: 9:06 am
PHOENIX — Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed the state’s $11.8 billion budget Friday morning after the plan was passed by lawmakers on Memorial Day.
“On Monday, lawmakers passed a fiscally conservative, balanced budget. Today, I’m proud to sign it,” Ducey said in a video.
“This is by far the best budget I have signed, and such a contrast to where our state was just four years ago.”
Ducey celebrated the budget’s $1 billion Rainy Day Fund along with $165 million to fund 20% teacher pay raises by the 2020 school year.
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“This budget learns from the mistakes of the past, and it makes a historic down payment on Arizona’s future,” he said.
“It’s proof that Arizona knows how to come together to do the things that matter.”
The budget also includes raising pay for public safety personnel, hiring more school counselors, widening Interstate 17 and expanding the Arizona Teachers Academy.
The plan was approved after majority Republicans resolved an impasse that divided the GOP and left talks in a stalemate for days.
Republican Sens. Paul Boyer and Heather Carter refused to back a budget deal until a proposal passed giving childhood sexual assault victims more time to sue their alleged assailants.
The measure extends the statute of limitations for suing from age 20 to 30 and allows victims now barred from the courthouse to sue until December 2020. It also increases the standard of proof needed to sue in those older cases.
