Cross-over week at the Capitol has arrived. The House will complete the consideration of House bills and the Senate will do the same. Starting next week, each chamber will start to consider the bills that passed out of the other. Also, at some point, when legislative leadership believes they have a general agreement on a budget and close to the votes for enactment, the focus will turn to passing the state budget for FY2022-23.

A key part of that budget development will be the revenue projections, and collections remain historically high with a growth rate of 18.7% over the previous year. Earlier this week, the Legislature's budget staff projected a $3.2 billion balance that lawmakers will have to work with when crafting next year's budget. Of that, they project that $2.1 billion will be available for one-time initiatives and for cash reserves although the State's Rainy Day Fund already has a balance of close to $1 billion.

This bodes well for the efforts to provide more one-time funding to infrastructure and there has been no shortage of bills introduced to direct funding to projects across the state. HB2396, the RTAC-led effort to fund transportation projects is undergoing some significant changes as the focus has shifted from local to state projects across Greater Arizona.

An updated transportation bill matrix with a description of all the transportation infrastructure-related bills and their status is attached.