Arizona lawmakers are proposing to give millions of state dollars to Maricopa County’s recorder for election-related purposes, as he fights for more money and control over elections.
The $4.1 million allocated to Recorder Justin Heap’s office is in the fiscal 2026 budget that the Republican-led Senate passed to the House early Friday for final approval. The House and Gov. Katie Hobbs have until June 30 to sign off on a final budget.
Hobbs, a Democrat, had negotiated with the Senate on an initial joint budget proposal, but it was subsequently amended, and it’s unclear if she will agree to the version that passed Friday. Hobbs’ office declined to comment Friday.
The Yuma County Recorder’s Office would also get $1 million for operating expenses under the proposal. No other recorder’s office received such an allocation.
The money for Heap, a Republican who took office in January, appears to be a direct response to his monthslong feud with the Maricopa County supervisors over control of the county’s elections. Lawmakers also added a statement to the budget bill that says supervisors can’t reduce funding to Heap’s office.
Supervisors have already passed a tentative county budget for fiscal 2026 that reduces the recorder’s office budget by about $4.4 million. The reduction was the result of an agreement signed by the former recorder last year that put all of the office’s IT staff, along with part of ballot processing, under the supervisors’ control. But the supervisors have also set aside $5.1 million in contingency funds that could be used for the recorder’s office under a new agreement if needed. The supervisors are scheduled to approve their final budget on Monday.
Heap rejected that agreement after he took office this year, kicking off the fight with the supervisors. He sued the supervisors earlier this month, seeking control of the county’s elections-related IT staff, which maintains and supports the county’s voter rolls, among other tasks. He also wants control over early in-person voting, which in recent years has been controlled by the supervisors. Supervisors earlier this week voted to file a countersuit.
Supervisors Chairman Thomas Galvin declined to comment Friday. He has repeatedly said that the supervisors tried in good faith to negotiate on their elections agreement.
After the supervisors took over the IT staff under the agreement, they proposed giving Heap some IT staff of his own, in part for maintenance and updates to the voter registration system. Heap rejected that agreement and then proposed a different one, which the supervisors rejected. Heap then filed the lawsuit.
If Heap takes over early in-person voting, county staff has estimated that it may create $13 million to $15 million in added costs, because the county supervisors may have to hire more staff, use separate machines and run separate training for Election Day voting. Supervisor Kate Brophy McGee said Friday that she worries that these costs could force the county to cut other priority services, such as public safety.
How did the line item make it into the budget?
Some Republican lawmakers have openly supported Heap in his conflict with the supervisors over elections, but it’s unclear which lawmaker specifically initially added the line item to the budget.
State Sen. Jake Hoffman, a Republican, introduced an amendment Thursday that ordered supervisors to give Heap control of the IT staff and full access to the elections building. That amendment failed.
Hoffman is a leader of the Freedom Caucus, a group of arch-conservative lawmakers that included Heap during his time in the state House.
It’s unclear whether Heap asked lawmakers for the money or they put it in of their own accord. Heap declined to answer that question directly. A public records request to his office asking for any communication he had with lawmakers on the state budget produced no responsive records, according to staff in his office.
Republican leadership in the House and Senate did not respond to requests for comment on the state funds slated for Heap’s office. Calli Jones, a spokesperson for the Senate Democrats, said Friday that the funding for Heap’s office “was a Republican ask that was part of the larger ‘deal.’”
“This is definitely a portion that Senate Democrats would have liked to see handled differently, but overall no one got everything they wanted in this budget,” Jones said.
In a statement to Votebeat after an initial budget was released last week, Heap hailed the funding for his office as great news, and “a welcome resource for my office,” which he said hasn’t received enough funding from the supervisors. He declined to elaborate.
Other counties want election money, too
The millions in the budget for the two recorders’ offices were included on a list of individual appropriations to specific local agencies, such as local fire or police departments.
Yuma County Recorder David Lara said earlier this week that he had asked the Legislature for the money, in part because he might try to hire outside counsel to help with certain issues where he disagrees with the county attorney’s guidance. He declined to identify the issues. As in Maricopa County, the Yuma County supervisors had voted before he took office to take away some of the election-related duties his predecessor had controlled.
Recorders across the state said that Maricopa and Yuma aren’t the only counties that could use additional money.
“As the Legislature considers the budget priorities that best serve Arizona, it stands to reason that providing ALL County Recorders the financial resources necessary to uphold the Arizona Secretary of State-mandated requirements for physical and cybersecurity, to ensure safe and accurate elections, would be among them,” Pinal County Recorder Dana Lewis said in a statement.
Jen Marson, the executive director for the Arizona Association of Counties, wrote to lawmakers last week asking for money for all county recorder’s offices, which need more information technology resources, she said.
“We recognize there are some other policy items wrapped up in the amendment for Yuma and Maricopa, but our concern at this point is the disparity that the Legislature is creating between those two counties and the rest of the counties in the state,” Marson wrote.
Jen Fifield is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Jen at jfifield@votebeat.org.
