Enacted Budget – Fiscal Year 2026
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs signed the state’s fiscal 2026 budget into law on June 27. General fund spending in the enacted budget totals $17.6 billion in fiscal 2026, including $16.53 billion in ongoing expenditures and $1.04 billion in one-time expenditures. This reflects an 8.1 percent increase in general fund spending, including a 6.5 percent increase in ongoing expenditures, compared to fiscal 2025 levels. The enacted budget assumes ongoing net general fund revenue (after urban revenue sharing and newly enacted revenue changes) of $16.6 billion (a 3.9 percent increase over fiscal 2025), a beginning balance of $1.1 billion, and other one-time revenues and transfers of $93 million. The fiscal 2026 enacted budget projects a $209 million general fund ending balance and an ongoing (structural) balance of $60 million.
The “bipartisan and balanced Arizona Promise budget” makes investments to “expand opportunity, security, and freedom in our state,” said the governor. The budget includes 5 percent pay raises for state troopers, as well as targeted funds for border security, county jail reentry programs, anti-human trafficking efforts, and backfilling federal cuts to the Victims of Crime Act. The enacted spending plan also makes investments to expand childcare access, eliminate co-pays for reduced price school meals, and support homelessness services. To secure the state’s water future and build resilience, the budget includes 15 percent pay raises for state firefighters, additional funding to the Wildland Fire Suppression Fund and Colorado River litigation fund, and other programs. For education, the budget fully funds the K-12 system, invests in school facilities, directs funds to increase bonding capacity for higher education capital projects, and makes investments in the Arizona Promise Program and the Arizona Community College Promise Program. The budget also includes a series of investments to expand access to health care, including in rural and undeserved areas.