PHOENIX (AP) _ Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer says she will expand the state's Medicaid program to cover citizens who earn up to 133 percent of the poverty line.

The Republican governor said Monday in her annual State of the State speech that she has fought against the federal health care law known as the Affordable Care Act. But she cited President Barack Obama's re-election and last summer's U.S. Supreme Court ruling in saying that the law is here to stay.

The Supreme Court did give states the option of not signing on to the expansion. But Brewer says virtually all of the expansion will be funded by the federal government, and not taking the money wouldn't contribute to the lowering of federal deficits.

She added that expanding Medicaid will help poor Arizonans and help hospitals and caregivers who now must give care without pay.

Brewer wants to tie some new school funding to performance.
She says the state has already enacted rules requiring schools to focus on core standards and to identify students having difficulty reading by the 3rd Grade. But she says one in four third-graders can't read at grade level, and it's no coincidence that one in four students drops out of high school.

So she says she's proposing a comprehensive performance funding plan for school districts and charter schools. She says the plan would augment per-student funding with an innovative approach to promoting school performance.

She releases her proposed 2013-2014 budget Friday.

Brewer also wants the Legislature to enact her proposal for a comprehensive simplification of the state's sales tax collection system. Brewer says the current system has so many twists and turns it is extremely difficult for businesses to pay what they owe. She says business owners serving multiple cities must file multiple tax returns with multiple tax bases and undergo multiple audits. She wants a system that has just one form and one filing per business.

Cities and towns object to some of the proposal because they would lose money from new construction sales taxes. House speaker Andy Tobin has said he's listening and open to changes. Her budget will include money to add 150 Child Protective Services workers and she wants emergency funding to hire 50 immediately.

Brewer says Arizona has improved operations at CPS in the past year by creating a special law enforcement unit to investigate the worst cases, overhauling the child abuse hotline reporting system, cutting paperwork burdens and streamlining hiring.

But Brewer says more needs to be done to address what she calls a ``moral issue'' of protecting children. She says the proposal she releases Friday for the budget year beginning July 1 will call for more school resource officers to keep children safe from violence.