Arizona Budget from Gov. Napolitano offers tech support. Small firms also benefit heavily

If your business is heavy into research and development, especially in the technology fields, Gov. Janet Napolitano’s budget has some goodies for you.

Ditto if it draws lots of back-to-school activity or if you’re a small business struggling to cover health-insurance costs.

Unlike the Republican leadership of the Legislature, the Democratic governor eschews across-the-board tax cuts in her budget for 2006-07 and opts for selected tax breaks.

At the top of the list is the creation of a public-private partnership that she envisions calling "Innovation Arizona." This group, which would be run by a non-government board of directors, would use $25 million in state dollars to leverage private efforts to attract researchers to the state, as well as to help move research projects from the laboratory to the market.

"If we invest in things at the seed level, that’s how you grow a knowledge economy," Napolitano said last week. Although $25 million is a paltry sum compared with the hundreds of millions that states such as Texas have poured into attracting cutting-edge technology businesses, it’s a start, she said. And money multiplied over the years will begin to make the state competitive, she said.

Mary Jo Pitzl
The Arizona Republic

Full Story: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/0118govbizbudget18.html