The evaporating water promise

Water cuts (for the children) … A memorial fit for kings … And let's rename everything.

In 2022, when former Gov. Doug Ducey signed a $1 billion bill to bring more water into Arizona, he called it “crucial for our continued growth.”

Arizona was in the “midst of the second decade of the worst drought in recorded history,” he warned, and “real leadership means tackling tough problems ourselves and not leaving them to our children.”

Lawmakers agreed, and they pledged a $1 billion investment over three years ($334 million per year) into a brand-new Long-Term Water Augmentation Fund that would develop ways to import new water and safeguard the supplies we already have.

Three years later, the “save our children” fund is plugging budget holes instead of water supply gaps.

The $1 billion water investment was one of Ducey’s legacy-building pieces of legislation. But he left office the next year, and the state dove into a fiscal crisis (thanks in part to his other legacy bills, like corporate tax cuts).

In 2023, lawmakers and Gov. Katie Hobbs approved a budget that slashed $144 million from the fund.

Despite objections from WIFA (the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority), which is in charge of administering the water money, the state cut $430 million from the fund in 2024.

Lawmakers felt bad and passed a resolution pledging to continue working with WIFA to reinstate “the full appropriation envisioned” in February this year.

Then, they passed the 2025 state budget that cut $84 million from the long-term fund.

To be fair, that $84 million was redirected to projects that are kind of water-related, like $1.7 million to beef up the state’s legal defense in upcoming Colorado River cuts and $30 million for fire suppression, according to WIFA.

Although the long-term fund was supposed to be fully stocked with $1 billion by now, WIFA spokesperson Ben Alteneder says only $379 million¹ is left in the fund. No long-term water projects were canceled, because they haven’t been selected yet.

And the budget cuts don’t exactly inspire confidence among potential project builders.

“It's a matter of keeping interest, and having a promise to a lot of these folks that we're working with that there's money, and then them seeing again and again that the Legislature is kind of reneging on that promise,” Alteneder said. “That’s a concern.”

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WIFA became a state agency in 1997, and it does most of its water conservation work by administering low-interest loans for water providers to build and upgrade public water supplies.

The initial purpose behind creating the long-term fund was as a potential down payment for an international water desalination plant. At the end of 2022, WIFA advanced² a $5.5 billion plan with an Israel-based desalination plant to pipe in water from Mexico. The plan quickly collapsed amid pushback over its fast approval and criticism from the Sonoran government.

Still, WIFA is making the most of the long-term fund’s remaining resources, and it recently narrowed down 17 initial proposals to six. Those proposals will go through deeper feasibility reviews for things like ocean water desalination and reclaimed water.

The major infrastructure projects could cost billions more than Arizona has allocated to long-term water savings, but covering some up-front costs helps bring proposals on board. Plus, Alteneder says, the state owns all the intellectual property from the project proposals, even if the projects themselves don’t move forward.

So far, Arizona has made a habit of siphoning from its water future to pay for its present.

And next year, the state could be in even more dire financial straits than the past three years of WIFA budget cuts. Incoming federal cuts could cost Arizona up to $858 million through the next fiscal year.

"We would hope (the budget cuts are) temporary, that the Legislature would repatriate these funds, especially given everything that's going on with the (Colorado) River,” Alteneder said. “It's hard for policymakers, sometimes, to focus past two to four years.”

Is this a Turning Point?: A memorial for Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium brought an estimated 100,000 people, including President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Elon Musk and several cabinet members, per the Republic’s Ronald J. Hansen and Stephanie Murray. The memorial was the first time Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, stood on stage as the new CEO and chairman of the board for Turning Point USA, Michelle Boorstein and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez write for the Washington Post. She forgave the man who shot her husband, saying “for they know not what they do,” while Trump vowed to crack down on his political opponents. Security for the event included the United States Secret Service, which arrested an armed man inside the stadium on Friday, but Turning Point says he was private security for the memorial, KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky and Lindsey C. Riley report.

ASU walks with ICE: An Arizona State University staffer was detained by ICE while at a meeting off campus, reports Helen Rummel for the Republic. The National Lawyers Guild at ASU's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law shared a post on social media calling out ASU’s potential involvement and denouncing the situation. The staffer was allegedly lured to the off-campus meeting over a “concern,” and was then surrounded by 15 plainclothes ICE agents, writes Phoenix New Times’ TJ L’Heureux, who posted a video of officers detaining the man.

Guns galore: Phoenix police arrested a man who said he felt triggered by recent political events and threatened to “shoot up” an LGBTQ bar in the Valley, 12News’ Jolyn Hannah reports. Phoenix police aren’t planning to increase patrols near LGBTQ-owned businesses, but Tempe police say they’re trying to take a more proactive approach by reaching out to those businesses to see if they need more security, LOOKOUT’s Natalia Rodriguez reports. Meanwhile, Arizona’s GOP lawmakers have been beefing up security at the Capitol and want more security at their homes following Kirk’s shooting, the Republic’s Ray Stern reports.

Big beautiful gaps: The directors of Arizona’s state agencies submitted their budget requests and they’re calling for hundreds of millions of dollars to fill gaps left by federal cuts, the Capitol Times’ Reagan Priest reports, including $71.4 million for the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System to make up for Medicaid cuts and cost shifts in the One Big Beautiful Bill.

“H.R. 1 will represent a significant expansion in the cost burden on the state of Arizona and in particular, the state general fund,” the AHCCCS budget request states. “The state will incur significant increases in administrative expenses and will be asked to make tough policy decisions as providers’ revenues decrease while uncompensated care increases.”

Congress can’t cut our budget. But it takes you to help grow it.

Who gets to talk?: GOP lawmakers said it would be “unprecedented” to censure Rep. John Gillette for spewing racist rhetoric at Muslims, saying the House Ethics Committee doesn’t police lawmakers’ speech. But as the Capitol Times’ Jakob Thorington points out, that’s not entirely true. Lawmakers are trying to censure Democratic Rep. Analise Ortiz for posting on social media about ICE raids. Last year, a House ethics panel said Ortiz and Rep. Oscar De Los Santos engaged in disorderly behavior by leading a chant opposing the state’s abortion ban. And in 2017, Sen. Mark Finchem filed an ethics complaint against former Rep. Mark Cardenas over a Facebook post.

In other, other news

An internal investigation shows an ex-Scottsdale police officer who allegedly had sex in his police vehicle while on duty also faced sexual assault allegations (TJ L’Heureux / Phoenix New Times) … Higley Unified School District Governing Board settled a lawsuit with a former superintendent designee who had his contract rescinded in 2024 (Tom Blodgett / Daily Independent) … Scottsdale has the ‘Axon bill’ set to become law Friday (Tom Scanlon / East Valley Tribune) … An Arizona prisoner has apologized ahead of his scheduled execution next month (Jacques Billeaud / Associated Press) … Parents of homeschooled children are pleading with a Payson school board to let their children participate in extracurriculars (Peter Aleshire / Payson Roundup).

Arizona’s general effective date is coming up fast — just four days from now. That’s when the bulk of this year’s new laws officially take hold, including most of the 265 bills signed by Gov. Katie Hobbs.

As Friday nears, here’s your rundown of what’s about to change.

Speaking of bills, we’re doing a series of webinars you can pop into to hear from your colleagues about how Skywolf, our legislative tracking software, can help your legislative workflow.

• On Thursday, we’ll show you a workflow designed specifically for policy professionals working at municipalities.

• On Friday, we’ve got a webinar designed specifically for associations.

Last week, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen promised to introduce a bill to rename State Route 202 as “Charlie Kirk Memorial Loop 202.”

That got us thinking: When you’re trying to put up a monument on the Capitol lawn — like, say, our idea for a monument to honor assassinated journalist Don Bolles — you need a lawmaker to sponsor a bill.

But you don’t actually need a bill to change the name of highways — anyone can request a name change.

Here’s the website — have fun!

1. We originally said WIFA has spent $379 million, but this is how much is left in the Long Term Water Augmentation Fund after budget sweeps.

2. We originally said WIFA “initiated” the plan, but that was poor word choice. They voted to move forward with it.