Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 2

FROM THE FRONT PAGE The Arizona Republic A2 TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2004 What to do with $121 mil? The Valley's news source The Arizona Republic, 12 News and azcentral.com often collaborate on news-gathering efforts to increase the value of news and information in print, on TV and online. Revenue comebacks The Arizona Republic (ISSN 0892-8711) (USPS 030-920) Published daily by Phoenix Newspapers Inc. 200 E. Van Buren Phoenix, AZ 85004, P.O. Box 1950, Phoenix, AZ 85001 Phone 602-444-8000 Member: Audit Bureau of Circulations deficit will close," said Rios, of Hayden.

Bennett is now trying to round up 16 votes from the 17 Senate Republicans for a new plan. But moderate Sens. Slade Mead and Linda Binder, as they did last year, favor Na-politano's budget increases for higher education, employee pay raises and all-day kindergarten. "I don't see the point in getting a budget out of here that's going to be vetoed by the governor," said Binder, R-Lake Havasu. House Speaker Jake Flake has predicted a House version of the budget as early as this week, but Farnsworth said Monday that it could take until next week.

Four groups of House Republicans have been working behind closed doors for weeks, and their ideas are now being merged. Social-service advocates are predicting that the House budget will spend far less than the Senate version and will include cuts to programs such as subsidized child care for working families. There is now a waiting list of 9,000 people for those subsidies. "Everybody assumes that if we don't get a decent budget out of the Senate that the House will be much more conservative and we will have to really fight," said Timothy Schmaltz of the Protecting Arizona Families Coalition. The state's recent rise in sales tax revenues has been similar to when Arizona emerged from its last recession during the early 1990s.

But the question remains: Will the trend continue through 2005? 0 Jul iJiaOiJLJal-ji Mi HI '90 '91 '92 '93 '94 1 '01 '02 '03 '04 Source: Joint Legislative Budget Committee Dan KemptonThe Arizona Republic jections lawmakers will increase the deficit if they spend as much as Napolitano wishes. He said the extra revenues from the current fiscal year cannot be applied to next year's structural deficit. "I thought this year was going to be easier," said Bennett, R-Scottsdale. "I thought we had a compromise last year that we would reduce the deficit by a third each year. That seems to be forgotten." The Senate's effort to craft a bipartisan budget plan broke down last week over these differences on revenue and spending, even though the sides were only about $50 mil- 12 peki 7.6- ES3 I II 1 provements in higher education, will hang in the balance.

Farnsworth and Senate President Ken Bennett say the new revenue cannot offset large, unavoidable increases for public schools and health care, both based on population growth. And Senate and House Republican leaders insist on using $200 million in cash to pay for school repairs and a 2-year-old settlement in a case requiring the state to pay back taxes to thousands of Ari-zonans who qualify. Cunningham said the economic upsurge will eventually close the deficit. That's why the governor backs new spending in some key areas now, while using debt and other accounting measures to temporarily bridge the gap. He asserted that Republicans have been overestimating the deficit figures.

The Legislature's own blue-ribbon panel of top economists told them Friday that the upward trend in revenues could last for several years, as it did in the 1990s. "It (alarm over the deficit) is an argument that has been manufactured in order to suppress the desire by many in the Legislature to provide funding for our critical investments in health care and education," Cunningham said. But Bennett said that is "just ludicrous" and that even under the rosiest revenue pro- rfpv I Clean living helps From Page Al tic revenue projections are turning out to be on target. But House Majority Leader Eddie Farnsworth said the news isn't good enough, that the extra money won't spare legislators from tough decisions as they deal with another budget shortfall. "The one thing you have to remember is we still have a $330 million structural deficit," said Farnsworth, R-Gil-bert, referring to the gap between revenues and ongoing financial commitments.

"And that's without spending anything on the big-ticket items like pay raises or any additional money for universities and community colleges that they've asked for." The $121 million increase in the Joint Legislative Budget Committee estimate covers the first half of the fiscal year. The committee estimates that the state still faces a $300 million shortfall with ongoing expenditures of $7 billion for 2004-05. In January, Napoli-tano offered a $7.2 billion budget and proposed helping pay for it with about $500 million in debt. Lawmakers say they expect to face a tough budget battle in coming weeks despite the unexpected revenues. Napolita-no's proposals, not only for all-day kindergarten but for child-care subsidies and im From Page Al tologist researchers.

Newton, who lives with her 89-year-old daughter near Sedona, is No. 31 on the list of "Validated Living Supercentenarians." She has her birth certificate to prove when and where she came into the world. Adding another year to her birthday tally is no big deal, Newton will tell you. "Why not?" she said with merriment. "I don't really have anything to do with it." She may be right, said Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

Barzilai is studying 300 families of people ages 95 to 108. "There is something genetically different in them, something very unique," he said. When Barzilai asks his subjects why they think they have lived so long, many reply: "What do you mean? My mother was 102." Barzilai, 48, pushes on. "I say, 'Come on. Aren't you a These people don't give me any hope, here.

I don't have one vegetarian, and nobody exercised. I have a woman who is 103 and has smoked two packs a day for 95 years." He believes their genes protect these centenarians and the "super" pool that includes Newton. Thomas Perls, associate professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, said he is directing one of the largest centenarian studies in the country. He has a bit of good news for those who fear the effects of living as long as Newton. At least for some people, "it's not a matter of the older you get the sicker you get." Many centenarians lead productive and independent lives well into their 90s, he said.

"I term it, the older you Estimating revenues How state analysts arrived at their 2004-05 revenue forecast The Joint Legislative Budget Committee staff, analysts representing the state Legislature, used a consensus to forecast revenue growth by equally weighting: The Finance Advisory Committee forecast average. The University of Arizona Economic and Business Research model baseline estimate. The Economic and Business Research conservative estimate. The JLBC forecast. The consensus applies to sales, individual income and corporate income taxes.

The remaining 6 percent of revenues were joint committee staff estimates. Source: Joint Legislative Budget Committee. lion apart. Sen. Pete Rios, a Democrat negotiator, said the sides were deadlocked on budget increases for universities, community colleges and welfare programs in the Department of Economic Security.

"We argue that with the economy improving that the i ftt-Wtun f.S!H 'I 1 A. i i 4 puter system and O'Neill would not have received them," the report said, Treasury Secretary John Snow, O'Neill's successor, told Congress on Monday that Treasury was making substantial progress in correcting problems in document handling identified by Rush's report. He said the department was conducting a separate damage assessment of the release of the documents. Swimming, arts and crafts, trips, computers, Israeli culture, sports and more. Choose from 10 sessions.

Tri-City Jewish Community Center, 1521 S. Indian Bend Road, Tempe. Five days: $180, $145 for members; three days: $128, $98 for members. 1 Vol. 114, No.

310 Tuesday, March 23, 2004 How to reach circulation To subscribe, call 602-444-1000. For customer service, missed papers or other issues, call 602 4441000. Toll free number outside metro Phoenix, 1800 332-6733. TDD (for hearing impaired), 602-444 8301. Service hours: 5:30 a.m.

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12th Phoenix 85014. AV I 4 i 62 I Newton family photo. Lydia Newton (right), who turns 111 today, is often mistaken for the sister of her 89-year-old daughter. Marguerite Rader. On TV Mountain lion relocation: The airlift begins Wednesday, as crews round up and fly mountain lions out of Sabino Canyon, and 12 News takes you there live.

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Van Buren, Phoenix, 85004 or e-mail them to opinions arizonarepublic. com. Letters may be faxed to 602 444-8933. Prayer Lord, we praise you and offer thanks for helping to make our lives happy and complete. Amen.

Thought of the day "A conscience which has been bought once will be bought twice." Nor-bert Wiener, American mathematician (1894-1964). Today's chuckle It's too bad that when success turns someone's head, it doesn't wring his or her neck at the same time. Clocks counters 229 year ago: In 1775, Patrick Henry made his famous call for American independence from Britain, telling the Virginia Provincial Convention, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" Life in 1893 Grover Cleveland takes over the presidency from Benjamin Harrison in January. It is Cleveland's second term; he also served from 1885 to '89. Millions of people visit the Chicago World's Fair during its six-month run.

Coca-Cola is registered as a trademark by a pharmacist in Atlanta. The striptease debuts on a Paris stage. U.S. Post Office begins to sell commemorative stamps. Perls said.

For those he has studied, quality of life means being able to let go of problems as they arise. "They don't dwell on things." That certainly fits Newton, who throws her hands up when asked how she has managed the stress of living. "I don't worry," she said emphatically. "Why do it? I believe that you shouldn't wish for something you don't have and always like what you do have. If you don't, you won't be happy at all." Newton, who was born in Kankakee, 111., is the only living sibling of her four brothers and two sisters.

She is on her second pacemaker and could very well live several more years, said her daughter, Marguerite Rader. Today, she is quick to fall into storytelling of her life on the farm in Illinois, even detailing how she was "6 years and 6 days old" when her father died after being hit by a bull. She talks about milking the cows and tending the garden. They were skills she later taught her own three children when they had a farm in Oregon after Lloyd, Newton's husband, died in 1950. She never remarried.

Life isn't quite as enjoyable for Newton as it was just three years ago or so. Her eyesight is failing, and she can't read or see the action on television. And it has been many years since she could add to her intricate collection of needlepoint and knitting. Newton passes the time talking to friends and family and listening to the radio. "But I don't like all this," she said, beginning to shimmy in her chair and bob her head, "kind of music." Again, her eyes sparkled and she smiled.

"I like big band. That's the good kind of music." improperly "The department's goal remains to achieve the highest standards in the handling of classified and other sensitive information," Snow said in a letter to several congressional committees. Treasury began its investigation in January after CBS's 60 Minutes showed a document marked "secret" during an interview in which O'Neill promoted the new book, The Price of Loyalty. (480) 897-0588. Bethany Pope's name was misspelled in the photo caption of a story about seat belts on the cover of the Local section of the Arizona Republic's Sunday edition.

U.S. population is more than lion. Today, it is more than 292 Today, Newton is shown in this photo from about 1920 with her husband, Lloyd, and their first two children, Marguerite (left) and Myron. Average life expectancy is 47 it is 77. United States has 44 states.

get the healthier you've been." might have better luck win- in the United States is a cente-But if you're holding out ning the lottery. narian; one per 10 million be- hope to be a centenarian, you About one person in 10,000 comes a Supercentenarian, Treasury says former chief had documents The report Monday from Jeffrey Rush Jr. said that no federal laws had been violated in the release of the documents but that Treasury needed to improve the way it handled sensitive documents. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Associated Press and other news media, Rush's office released its investigation report on how O'Neill received some 19,000 'govern The name of the sponsor for the Arizona Educational Foundation's State Spelling Bee was incorrect on Page B6 in Monday's Arizona Republic. The sponsor is the College of Humanities and Sciences, a distance-learning college that is unaffiliated with ment documents that were used to write a book highly critical of President Bush.

The new report found that 140 of those documents had not been marked classified even though they contained national security or sensitive but unclassified information. "Had these 140 documents been properly marked as classified, the documents would not have been entered into Treasury's unclassified com Arizona State University. The city for Camp Shalom in the summer-camp list in Arizona Living on March 12 was incorrect. Here is the correct listing: Camp Shalom: June 1-Aug. 6.

For children 3 years through Grade 9. By Martin Crutsinger Associated Press WASHINGTON Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who painted an unflattering portrait of President Bush in a book in January, received 140 government documents for the book that should not have been released after he left office, the Treasury Department's inspector general says. Corrections The Arizona Republic corrects errors fully and promptly. To report an error in the news columns, phone the Republic at 602-444 NEWS (6397). To report an error on the Opinions pages, phone the Editor of the Editorial Pages Ken Western at 602-444 8499.

Or send a message to Correctionarizonarepublic.com. I.