Continued conflict over the Arizona state budget

On Tuesday, June 24, 2025, the Arizona House voted to pass a continuation budget that would keep the state running as is, and now this proposed budget is moving to the Senate for a vote. However, Governor Katie Hobbs has stated she plans to veto this measure if it were to reach her desk.

The deadline to complete the Arizona state budget to avoid a government shutdown is just a few days away on June 30. As conflict over the budget remains, Governor Hobbs has advised state agencies to prepare for the possibility of a government shutdown.

If Arizona were to experience a shutdown, different services within the government might be paused, and state workers face the possibility of being furloughed.

Mary Jo Pitzl, Senior Reporter at “The Arizona Republic,” joined “Arizona Horizon” to share insight on the state budget issues.

Pitzl shared that Gov. Hobbs vetoed two proposed budget bills in the matter of 15 minutes. She shared some insight into what was in these two bills.

“Each of these budgets was done only, approved only with Republican votes of the House. One spent $17.3 billion for the next budget year. The second one was a so-called skinny budget at $17 billion that basically would continue state government services with the hope that then they don’t have to have a shutdown. They can keep working into July, and August, and September to come up with a better plan,” Pitzl said.

With the two budget bills being vetoed by Gov. Hobbs, there is still one budget plan left.

“The indications are that with, there’s only one budget plan left standing right now. So she stands alone I guess. And with the two House Republican only budgets now, dust. We are told the House will bring up the Senate plan which was negotiated between Hobbs, the Senate Republicans and all the legislative Democrats. So most of the players on a budget negotiation, and it’ll be the House’s turn to decide, can they accept this?” Pitzl said.

Pitzl commented on how the Senate budget bill compares to the two vetoed budget bills.

“There were a lot of similarities. You know they, they all love road projects, a lot of that’s was in basically both budgets. But the biggest difference is things that were the governor’s priorities. Remember, the governor’s a Democrat, the majority in the legislature are Republicans. So what we’ve seen that’s in the Senate budget are things that lean more towards what the governor favors. Such as money for child care, to get rid of or reduce the child care waitlist. Pay raises for public safety officials,” Pitzl said.