This is your legislative update for April 25, 2008.

Last week, the Arizona House and Senate finally reached an agreement on the state budget adjustments for fiscal year 2008.

The deal includes: $311.5 million in cuts; $487 million to be used from the Rainy Day Fund; $272 million in K-12 rollover dollars; and $300 million in fund sweeps.

While the agreement did not include bonding for new school construction, there is speculation that the fiscal year 2009 budget could include a retroactive bonding mechanism. The total adjustments agreed to for the fiscal year 2007-2008 budget totaled $1.37 billion.

The bill, HB2620: BUDGET; FISCAL 07-08; ADJUSTMENTS, has been transmitted and signed by Governor Napolitano.

HB2270: WATER DISCLOSURE is the proactive effort by AAR to place water supply status disclosure on the accurate party-The Municipal Water Provider.  This legislation will require the Arizona Department of Real Estate (ADRE) and the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) to post water resources information on their website as well as require a municipality or private water provider to supply a written statement describing the water status within 3 days to the buyer when requested.
 
The bill is still moving through the legislative process and is on the floor this week. After the Senate votes on it, it will go back to the House for a final vote as the Senate added an amendment to it.

As you know, the Sheet Metal Workers Union filed a ballot initiative to require sellers and real estate licensees to provide, among other things, a 10-year home warranty for workmanship (a warranty that is NOT even available for older homes).

SB1176 PURCHASER DWELLING ACTIONS; DEFINITIONS is another proactive effort by AAR. The bill clarifies the definition of "seller" in statutes pertaining to dwelling actions (civil suits brought by buyers of a dwelling unit against the seller for defects in design or construction) and changes it to exclude the real estate salesperson or broker who provided services in connection with a sale or resale of a dwelling unit. Basically, this amendmentwould remove real estate licensees from the requirement to provide a 10-year warranty for workmanship – a product that is not even available for older homes. Another thing the bill does is to spell out that the 10 year warranty is from the date of subcontractor completion and is only on new homes.

AAR is proactively moving this legislation through the legislature. It passed out of the House with a substantial vote in favor 25-0 in favor.

SB1232 REAL ESTATE DEPT; BUSINESS BROKER DESIGNATION is the bill that AAR added an amendment to that, if passed, would prohibit statutorily the delivery of ADRE licensee email addresses to any person or entity other than a court of law or other government agency or for a legitimate government purpose.

The amendment came about as the ADRE received a request from an outside vendor asking that the department provide him a list of the email address for every real estate licensee in the state of Arizona. AAR is concerned about SPAMMing amongst other issues if this list is provided to an outside vendor, therefore, we went forward with the amendment.This bill also is still moving through the legislative process.