Don’t defund the watchdog: Bipartisan budget cuts the wrong corner

According to reporting from the Arizona Mirror, the independent oversight program Arizona stood up after the Hacienda Healthcare rape is about to go dark. The watchdog, created to keep eyes on group homes and protect people who cannot protect themselves, will cease at the end of this year unless it finds a new funding source.

The Mirror reports the program’s defunding is a casualty of the newest bipartisan state budget. In other words, this was not one party’s impulsive cut. Both sides signed the check that wasn’t written.

The consequence is simple: fewer independent eyes on facilities where the state places some of Arizona’s most vulnerable residents. If the watchdog ends, oversight collapses back onto the same bureaucracy that licenses and pays providers, minus the external check Arizona added after a failure that shocked the state in 2018.

Conservatives like me are often accused of wanting to cut government indiscriminately. Nonsense. The job is to cut what is performative and fund what is essential. An independent set of eyes on group homes created after a high-profile abuse case qualifies as essential. If you think this program is redundant or ineffective, make the case publicly and replace it with something better. Don’t just pull the plug and hope nothing bad happens.

Bipartisan budgets are supposed to represent adult compromise. This one looks like the opposite: quiet defunding of a basic accountability tool with no clear replacement plan. The Mirror’s account doesn’t reveal a fallback. If there is one, lawmakers should say so now and show their work.

Arizona has learned the hard way that top-down promises are not the same as real supervision. Independent oversight is uncomfortable by design. It asks awkward questions, writes unflattering reports, and forces fixes. If you only fund the comfortable parts of government, you eventually fund failure.

There are options. Lawmakers could bridge this with a targeted appropriation, a provider assessment dedicated to oversight, or a short-term transfer while they redesign it with tighter metrics and a sunset review. Any of those would beat the current plan, which is to let the clock run out.

Because this was a bipartisan budget, there is bipartisan responsibility to correct it. That means legislative leaders and the governor owning the choice and fixing it before the end-of-year cliff. A supplemental appropriation is not radical. It is maintenance of basic standards.

If you’re hunting for a ribbon-cutting, this is the wrong line item. There is no photo op for a watchdog that prevents what does not happen. There is only the quiet confidence that someone is checking. That is the work of grown-ups.

Arizona created this oversight after a scandal for a reason. Walking away from it now, as reported, invites the same old cycle: outrage, task force, new program, rinse, repeat. Do the diligent thing once. Keep the watchdog funded, set clear goals, measure results, and keep vulnerable Arizonans at the center of the budget rather than beneath it.

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