Jane Hull knew things were getting bad for Arizona.
"In Arizona, we have had alarms going off across the board for months," Arizona's governor told the Arizona Legislature Tuesday. "They have only grown louder with the passage of time."
You see, the Legislature has a pretty tough job to do in the next weeks or months or however long it takes. It has been called to a special session to deal with a major problem. In Arizona, we have a projected two-year budget deficit of -- get this -- $1.6 billion dollars. They have the daunting task of fixing it.
That's an inconceivable number, really, especially on a state level. But Gov. Jane knew it was coming. She told us so. Alarms in Arizona had been going off for months.
In her proposal to fix the deficit, Gov. Jane won't honor a promise she made to state employees to give them a raise they desperately deserve.
But on Tuesday, she abdicated responsibility and aimed blame at the Legislature.
"Unfortunately, your optimistic outlook last spring wasn't enough to right the ship of state," Jane said, lecturing the bad little children in the Legislature. "Optimism is a great thing, but when it is used to avoid addressing a real problem it can be bad."
Really?
"In fact, this optimism actually inflated the hopes of our citizens and particularly state employees," she continued, proverbial ruler in hand. "Their expectations were raised well beyond the state's ability to pay."
Believe it or not, Gov. Jane is right. Optimism, and probably stupidity too, did inflate the hopes of our citizens and particularly state employees.
But the Legislature didn't cause the problem. She did.
Just months ago, in her State of the State address, Gov. Jane sang a different tune.
Then, she proposed several new-spending measures including a $290 million state employee package that would go toward giving state employees a five percent pay raise for two years. It was needed, she said, for several reasons:
* State employees were paid 13 percent less than market average.
* Forty-one percent of new employees leave the state government within six months of employment.
* Fifty-five percent cited low pay or a similar job with a local government for better pay as a reason for leaving.
* System-wide turnover was 18.5 percent.
Gov. Jane told us that something needed to be done.
"This is unacceptable," she declared just months ago. "We need a modern, efficient state government staffed by highly educated and properly compensated employees."
"Believe me," she said then, "this is not the place to cut corners." After all, the state has cut corners here before. While speaker of the house, secretary of state, and in her previous years as governor, Gov. Jane never spoke up for state employees.
She knows it too.
"State employees were shortchanged during the good times and deserve an increase now," she said Tuesday.
They may deserve an increase in pay, but Gov. Jane is ready to break a promise to the people who have been underpaid for so long. She's ready to shatter the value of her word.
But it's not her fault. We should blame the Legislature's eternal optimism.
What Gov. Jane doesn't seem to keep in mind is that while she may have a short memory, state employees never forget a promise.
On Tuesday, as the governor harangued the joint session of the House and Senate, hundreds of state employees protested her proposal to cut the once-promised raises. As she left the House building after her speech, the governor was booed and heckled.
They came from all over the state. Flagstaff, Yuma, Phoenix. State employees were out in force on Tuesday.
"Low pay, no stay!" they shouted at the shaken Gov. Jane.
They were upset, and with good reason.
While state employees put up with below average pay, legislators were making big bucks on the alternative-fuels debacle by purchasing normally expensive SUVs for dirt-cheap.
While state employees got the shaft, Gov. Jane was using an expensive taxpayer-funded private jet to travel to her northern Arizona home.
While state employees work 40-hour workweeks, Gov. Jane is rarely in the office and leaves very early on Fridays.
While quality state employees were leaving for better paying jobs elsewhere, the legislature ordered expensive new office furniture for themselves.
Their pay raises deserve to get cut, but Gov. Jane never offered to cut her own salary. Apparently, she is more deserving than they are.
Odds are that when all is said and done, state employees won't get their raise. They deserve them -- probably more than anybody else -- but it's easier for Gov. Jane to hurt others than take blame herself.
"I hope that I am not the only one embarrassed by the fact that our state budget was unbalanced the first day of the new fiscal year," Gov. Jane said Tuesday.
She may be embarrassed about the budget, but she should be embarrassed for her incompetence and lack of integrity.
State employees should be embarrassed too. They may have made the biggest mistake of all. They trusted an Arizona governor.
Seth Scott is a journalism and political science senior. Reach him at seth.scott@asu.edu.
