GOVERNMENT SPENDING

Arizona, a very small player in the Country is trying to quickly spend approximately 8 million dollars which is its share of the "Jobs" retraining stimulus money. The problem with this money is that the State must obligate these funds quickly in order not to lose them. And, Government must be able to account for the funds and justify their use. This program is worse because it is obvious that the same problem is being felt by 49 other states as well.
This task in my opinion is quite impossible. Wise usage of such funds would dictate careful and intelligent planning which cannot be quickly identified. So, the State Government will probably pass the monies out to the next best sounding program ginned up by some bureaucrats and their lobbyist buddies. The resultant will obviously be a total loss of the funds, some agonizing by the bureaucrats, and no one will be effectively retrained or initially trained. Since there is a requirement to account for the funds, the accounting costs must be borne by someone, either through monies from the Jobs Stimulus program or by other state obligations. I would guess that the cost to monitor could be as high as 50 percent of the total funds available.

Meanwhile, the 3 State Universities will continue to gouge the students (aka the "Stimulus Surcharge"), maintain a large number of useless baggage in the form of non productive tenured professors that seldom teach, and reduce the number of educational options and real instructors. Don't forget that the Universities will all three will continue the need to improve their sports programs and employ high priced coaches and maintain expensive infrastructure for sports programs.

Enough is enough! It is time to rid the State of all of these problems.

1. Return the Stimulus jobs money (and any other like structured fund initiatives).
2. Revise and redraw the tenure program so that performance in the classroom becomes the measure of success and remove the job protection aspect of tenure.
3. Completely redraw and revise ALL sports programs so that real fiscal responsibility may be imposed. Remove or reduce athletic scholarships except in instances where real talent in the classroom may be nurtured. This would also reduce and possibly eliminate the associated activities such as cheer leaders, pom lines, and marching bands and their attendant upkeep and maintenance costs.
4. Remove non valued student programs and classes. This item is really a tough issue since there will be very vocal arguments as to what is valuable.
5. Revise the tuition and fees costs to students to be more in line with State mandated requirements of being the lowest possible charges.
6. Realign the structure and location of the various campuses to affordable locations. I really question the cost effectiveness of the Downtown Phoenix campus.

Finally, maybe we need a real Republican Governor that does not sound and act like her Democratic predecessor. Someone who is less political and more businesslike.