I see lots of sarcastic comments from people who have no idea about academic life. So here is a brief primer:
-Tenure is essential for Academic Freedom because one should be free to criticize current intellectual positions without fear of losing our job. Without tenure everybody would self censure and tomorrow's revolutionary ideas will be still born.
-Coming to UA system, the Statewide cost $70 million and it is a huge bureaucracy. They don't teach a single student. For comparison consider UAS -its cost is around $53 million.
-Faculty Salary and Benefits consist about 24% of the $900 Million Operating budget for the UA system. So if you are trying to control costs try going after that 76% and not the 24%.