Breakneck budgeting

Slow down, please … Everybody gets a trade war … And officials like transparency, sometimes.

The Pima County supervisors moved at breakneck speed through a budget discussion yesterday.

That might sound like a relief. After all, who really wants to talk about a county budget?

Well, we do.

The county is going to spend a lot of taxpayer dollars in the coming fiscal year and the public deserves to play a meaningful role in deciding how that money is spent. That can’t happen if county officials rush through the budgeting process.

At yesterday’s meeting, the sheriff’s department asked for $2.7 million in additional funding for next fiscal year. That’s a lot of money. And it’s becoming a pattern for the sheriff’s department to spend beyond its budget, including about $5 million this fiscal year, which is a big point of contention between Sheriff Chris Nanos and Supervisor Matt Heinz.

And, of course, it’s important for public safety. Supervisor Steve Christy brought up how slowly law enforcement officers respond to emergencies in remote areas of the county, and a woman told a harrowing tale at yesterday’s meeting about her husband trying to be a Good Samaritan, but ending up murdered.

Guess how long the supervisors talked about that $2.7 million? About a minute.

Then they were on to the next budget topic, and devoted about a minute to that one, too.

Time is running short. It won’t be long before the supervisors adopt their tentative budget, which sets the ceiling for how much money they can spend next year.

That means they have just a few meetings to explain the financial state of the county to the public, consider budget requests from department heads, hash out any large-scale disputes they might have, and give the public a chance to digest it all.

By the look of it, we weren’t the only ones who had a hard time keeping up. The supervisors themselves appeared to be struggling to follow along.

A lot of ink has been spilled lately about the consequences of the broad cuts the Trump administration is making to the federal government. Those types of consequences can play out at all levels of government, including the county.

Earlier this week, the Tucson Sentinel reported a 70-year-old woman died while in custody at the Pima County Jail.

The jail has a horrific reputation and Heinz, who is also a physician, said he was concerned about the for-profit company that handles medical care in the jail. He suggested the supervisors consider having county employees provide that care instead.

Heinz also went after Nanos about the handling of a sexual assault allegation, which led to a one-year jail sentence last month for a sergeant convicted of assaulting a female deputy at a holiday party.

Heinz said he doesn’t want the supervisors to give Nanos any additional money until all that is sorted out. Christy seconded his motion, but the pair couldn’t find a third supervisor to vote for their motion.

Grijalva pushed back on Heinz’s request, saying she wasn’t sure whether the Pima County Board of Supervisors has the power to question the budget of an elected official.

As for the federal grants that have caused so much concern at the county and other local governments, Christy said he didn’t want to vote on any supplemental budget requests until he had more information about those grants.

Grijalva also said she didn’t want to approve any requests until the county has a better sense of how much of the county budget is tied to federal grants.

County Administrator Jan Lesher said they’re worried about $56 million in federal grants, but the only grant they know for sure is on hold is $2.8 million from the Department of Transportation.

The good news is the county is still getting reimbursed, for the most part. But there’s still a lot of uncertainty, and that uncertainty isn’t going away anytime soon.

County Supervisor Rex Scott asked Lesher for the single best source of information about layoffs, cuts, and court cases.

“We don’t have one,” Lesher replied.

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Welcome back to another behind-the-scenes discussion on the City of Tucson’s annual $2.4 billion budget.

We’re still working our way through the fundamentals of the budget process. Today, we’re talking about a relatively simple concept that guides so much of how city departments spend taxpayer dollars.

On July 1, the start of the fiscal year for the city, each department starts with their full (authorized) budget. Money is set aside for specific line items, ranging from salaries to staples.

The first few months of the fiscal year are pretty straight-forward. Spend as budgeted and you get monthly reports on whether you’re burning through cash too quickly, and for some departments, whether your revenue is meeting expectations.

As departments get closer to the end of the fiscal year, they have to be more judicious in their decisions. For example, maybe you can hold off on your order of printer paper until mid-July if money is running out.

The opposite is also true, a department might stock up before the end of the fiscal year if it has more cash on hand than initially expected.

So why is this important? Because balancing your departmental budget is nothing like balancing your checkbook.

It resets on July 1. Whatever was left over in the budget on June 30 rolls into the general fund and for the most part, is lost to your department.

Each department head may have a different approach (spend it all vs. use only what you need and give back to the city) but it is definitely a different mindset than running a business or a household.

Armchair commander-in-chief: A karate instructor in Benson may have played a role in President Donald Trump deciding to pause U.S. military support for Ukraine, the Washington Post’s Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Michael Birnbaum report. (This story has it all. If you read any news story today, make it this one).

On the chopping block: The federal building in downtown Tucson is on the list of buildings the DOGE crowd is trying to sell, the Tucson Sentinel’s Dylan Smith reports. The building, which houses local offices of numerous federal agencies, like the U.S. Marshals and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, is one of more than 440 buildings across the country that Elon Musk is trying to get rid of. Those properties may be sold to private buyers and then leased back to the federal government.

The trade wars have begun: Now that the Trump administration is going ahead with tariffs on goods from Mexico, the Mexican federal government is all set to impose retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods, the Associated Press reported. President Claudia Sheinbaum said she will announce on Sunday which products from the U.S. will have new tariffs.

Not exactly rave reviews: Two border sheriffs said they weren’t thrilled with Gov. Katie Hobbs’ new border task force, or how it was rolled out, KGUN’s Alexis Ramanjulu reports. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said “I don’t need another task force,” while Commander Bob Watkins at the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office said his county has unique needs that might not be met by the statewide Operation Desert Guardian.

New top dog: Arizona’s top federal prosecutor is now Timothy Courchaine, the Sentinel’s Paul Ingram reports. He was sworn in Monday as U.S. Attorney, about two weeks after his predecessor, Gary Restaino, was fired. Courchaine now oversees thousands of federal cases involving immigration, cross-border drug smuggling, and public corruption, as well as civil litigation.

No tents allowed: If the Arizona House has their way, the next time University of Arizona protesters set up tents during an on-campus protest they’ll be breaking the law, Capitol Media Services’ Howard Fischer reports. The bill was written by Tucson Democratic Rep. Alma Hernandez, who is Jewish and cited the pro-Palestinian and anti-Isreal protests at Arizona universities last year.

At times, we understand the role of being a journalist can put us at odds with elected officials. We throw rocks sometimes and this space can often be used to tease out some humor, when in the same room serious decisions are made.

Then we have moments where our wonky, political nerdy selves are just on the same level with the politicians we cover.

After a four-and-a-half hour Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) meeting on Monday, Supervisor Adelita Grijalva offered some mild, but public, criticism of how the Pima Association of Governments (PAG) distributes information, asking for an online system with nested menus to print individually.

PAG, which manages the Regional Transportation Authority, instead offered the Board a 654-page document.

Grijalva, who prefers to read paper documents, said she tries to print only what she needs.

“I don’t want to kill this many trees every time I am trying to follow along,” she said.