The Arizona Legislature included $15 million in the state’s budget to improve and refurbish Prescott’s historic rodeo grounds.
The newly enacted budget requires the City of Prescott to promptly use the funds to upgrade essential infrastructure at the city-owned grounds, including bathrooms, parking, and water and sewer systems.
Legislators set aside the funding in 2023, but legal challenges sidelined the project.
In May, an Arizona trial judge struck down the state’s $15.3 million handout to the Prescott Frontier Days Rodeo, declaring it an unconstitutional gift of taxpayer funds. The ruling, in a case the Goldwater Institute participated in as a friend of the court, was scene as a resounding victory for taxpayers and a vindication of the state Constitution’s restrictions on how the government spends taxpayer money.
The case began in 2024, when the state legislature adopted an appropriation act that included a provision allocating the funds to the rodeo, with no strings attached. Taxpayers sued, arguing that this handout violated the Gift Clause, the provision of the state Constitution that forbids the government from “ever giv[ing] or loan[ing] its credit in the aid of, or mak[ing] any donation or grant, by subsidy or otherwise, to any individual, association, or corporation.” In a series of cases brought by the Goldwater Institute over the past two decades, Arizona courts have interpreted this clause as requiring that any expenditure of public money must accomplish a “public purpose,” and must also result in a proportionate return to the government—that is, the government can buy things, but can’t just give away money for free.
As a result, lawmakers revised and reinstated the funding in the budget with specific, enforceable language directing how the money must be used.
According to the new budget language, the funds must be used to improve and promote use of the rodeo grounds through projects such as drainage work, landscaping, and replacement of aging water and sewer infrastructure.