Arizona’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget showed modest revenue improvements, but the Joint Legislative Budget committee’s three-year forecast continues to show an overall weak budget picture moving forward and a structural deficit, after one-time monies are removed. State mandated and politically forced spending formed the basis of growth areas related to child abuse and neglect as well as the inflation-funding formula for K-12 education. Medicaid expansion, narrowly passed in 2013, seems to have made possible the resolution of a 30-year lawsuit regarding underserving mentally ill.
