Budgeting on their minds
Money's rolling in ... Wheeler's back ... And trivial pursuit.
The Tucson City Council is getting some good financial news tonight.
Six months into the fiscal budget, the city is projecting it will end the year with a $22 million dollar surplus. The city had projected it would take in $758 million in revenues when it adopted its budget last summer and actual revenues are beating expectations. Here’s why:
Sales tax revenues are higher than anticipated, to the tune of roughly $10 million.
Other city taxes (like the rental fee) are also up by $811,000
State shared sales taxes are up compared to projections
The city’s investments are doing better than expected, earning the city an additional $7.8 million.
While not part of the projected surplus, it’s interesting to note that legal marijuana sales have quietly contributed nearly $4 million to city coffers in recent years and officials expect to see a similar amount next year.
Still, no one is uncorking the mid-grade chilled champagne they have on hand for such occasions quite yet.
As we’ve been saying for the last week or so, city staff still don't have a good sense of how a federal funding freeze would impact the city.
Over the next few months, city staff are going to update the council on the budget process at each study session, which will allow us to keep you up-to-date on the city’s financial realities, and how council members are dealing with those realities.
The key upcoming moments in this year’s budget process:
April 22: The city manager submits his recommended budget.
May 6: The council will hold a public hearing.
May 20: They’ll adopt the tentative budget, which sets the spending cap.
June 3: They’ll hold another public hearing to talk about any changes to property taxes and (hopefully) adopt the final budget on the same day.
New weekend pocket parks?: The Council is expected to sign off on an agreement with Tucson Unified School District to open up some middle school outdoor recreational areas and turn them into parks on weekends, holidays and during the summer.
The City of Tucson and TUSD have been co-operating for years to use these recreational areas when not in use by the schools, and they shared the cost of building shade structures over six basketball courts at TUSD middle schools.
The work at Gridley, Magee, Utterback, Mansfeld, Vail Middle Schools as well as the CE Rose K-8 School, recently wrapped up — leading to the new agreement so that the city will start using the schools as public parks in the coming weeks.
The cost to the city is expected to be $32,000, which pays for staff mostly to open (or lock up) the facilities and do minor maintenance as needed.
The city has similar agreements with TUSD for other schools throughout Tucson, but the six schools named above included using city tax revenues to pay for the upgrades.
Renovating Tucson House: The Council will be asked to approve a massive $188 million renovation of the Tucson House, a 60’s era public housing complex off of Oracle Road which currently has 408 housing units.
A key part of the deal will be to transfer the city-owned property to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The 30-month planned rehabilitation of the 62-year-old building will be done in phases, relocating individuals into other city-run public housing complexes.
Almost everyone who lives in Tucson House and wants to come back into the renovated building will be allowed to, although there are two caveats.
The new Tucson House will have 50 fewer units, a combination of eliminating all the first-floor units and combining some of the smaller units into larger apartments with more bedrooms.
A handful of families, with a total of 13 children, will be living in other city housing, as the new Tucson House will be converted into housing for those 55 years old and older.
This is the second time that the city has had to decrease its available housing stock due to necessary repairs and renovations in the last few years.
The City of Tucson is preparing to demolish two apartment complexes at 202 East Mohave Road and 201 East Navajo Road as they are no longer “habitable” and their location in the Navajo Wash floodplain made redevelopment on the parcels particularly challenging.1
Tucson housing officials note that the overall number of affordable housing units in its inventory is not decreasing. By the time the Tucson House is fully renovated, they estimate there will be 360 new units built for affordable housing.
Opposition to liquor permit near Salvation Army: Several residents in the Dunbar Spring neighborhood are opposed to a Shell gas station on Speedway getting a liquor license, primarily due to its proximity to the Salvation Army shelter across the street.
Many of the complaints more or less looked like this one:
“We have enough problems with homelessness, vagrancy, dereliction, mental illness and crime here without adding a liquor store in the mix,” one resident wrote.
Residents pointed out that there were other bars and liquor stores nearby and issuing the one to the gas station was unnecessary.
If the Tucson City Council denies the liquor license request, it will then go to the State Liquor Board. It’s worth noting the Board doesn’t always back the recommendations made by the city when it ultimately issues a liquor license.
Believe it or not, you have another election headed your way. And soon. Tucson voters will decide whether to approve Proposition 414, a half-cent sales tax to fund public safety and housing initiatives, on March 11.
The sales tax is expected to generate quite a bit of tax revenue, $800 million over the next decade.
If the Tucson Agenda generated $800 million, we could revolutionize the entire news industry. For now, all we need is for you to click that button and subscribe!
City officials put together a timeline for voters with the key moments to remember:
February 4: The city mails publicity pamphlets to Tucson households
February 10: Deadline to register to vote in the election
February 12: Ballots are mailed to voters and early voting begins
February 26: Deadline to request a ballot
March 5: Deadline to mail back your ballot
In the meantime, city officials are going to hold three town halls to talk about Prop 414. All of them will be held from 5:30 - 7:00 p.m.
February 6: El Pueblo Senior Center, 101 W. Irvington Road
February 11: Morris K. Udall Center, 7200 E. Tanque Verde Road
February 12: Donna R. Liggins Recreation Center, 2160 N. Sixth Ave.
There are a few new candidates in the upcoming Tucson City Council Ward 6 race, including a familiar face in local politics.
Former state representative and Tucson City Councilman Bruce Wheeler wants back on the Council. Last week, Wheeler put his paperwork in with the city.
One of the top priorities for Wheeler is water, both in cleaning up contaminated wells and securing long term sustainability, and further exploring the possibility of a municipal-owned electric utility.
Wheeler last sought public office in 2018 when he entered a crowded primary fight for what was then Congressional District 2.
Jim Sinex, a public-school science teacher, also put in paperwork for Ward 6 last week.
In his announcement, Sinex said he was not a typical Democrat and his top priority would be to build "a better election system."
It’s an interesting priority coming from a Democrat. The city’s current model, established by the city charter, gives an advantage to the political party with the largest number of voters — which happens to be Democrats here in Tucson — in the general election.
All city residents, regardless of what ward they live in, are allowed to vote in all the ward elections, not just the one they live in.
As of Monday, there were a total of six Democrats in the running to fill the seat.
In addition to Wheeler and Sinex, Pima Community College Boardmember Theresa Riel, local attorney Leighton Rockafellow Jr., community organizer Miranda Schubert, and one of the co-owners of a small videogame merchandise company, Charlie Verdin, are all vying for the seat.
A seventh person is listed on the city’s web page as a candidate in Ward 6, but TUSD Boardmember Val Romero withdrew his candidacy a few weeks ago.
There are no Republican candidates for the Ward 6 seat at this time.
Each candidate will have to get a minimum of 391 signatures from Democrats and independents living in the ward by April 7 to qualify for the primary ballot.
Over in Ward 5, another candidate has filed to run in the Democratic primary. Christoper Elsner put in his statement of interest recently, becoming the fourth Democrat looking to replace Councilman Richard Fimbres, who is not seeking re-election.
The other candidates in the Ward 5 race are southside political activist Richard Hernandez, philanthropist Jesse Lugo, and small business owner Selina Barajas.
Making the case: Tucson City Councilmember Lane Santa Cruz lays out the argument in favor of Prop 414 in an op-ed in the Tucson Sentinel. Santa Cruz says the measure may not be perfect, but it “cements the investments we’ve made in care, housing, and crisis response,” such as fare-free transit, participatory budgeting, the Housing First model, and the care coordinators program.
Border resolve: At the dawn of the second Trump administration, religious and humanitarian groups in Southern Arizona remain as committed as ever to helping migrants and asylum seekers in the dangerous terrain near the border, the Arizona Luminaria’s Rafael Carranza reports. They were told to clear off U.S. Forest Service land, where they run an aid camp, a few weeks before Trump took office, but they say they won’t dismantle the camp and put migrants in danger.
Stopped, for now: The 25% tariffs President Donald Trump said he would place on goods from Mexico are on hold after Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum came to an agreement, the Washington Post reported. The deal is Mexico will send 10,000 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to focus on illegal border crossings and fentanyl smuggling, in exchange for the U.S. not starting the 25% tariffs for a month. Sheinbaum also said Trump had agreed to work on stopping the flow of weapons into Mexico.
All sorts of craziness: A physics teacher at Marana High School was put on leave after he talked to his students about a rare genetic condition in which a person has the chromosomes of a male, but they don’t develop male physical characteristics, the Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers reports. One of Les Beard’s students filmed the talk and their mother sent it to right-wing provocateur James O’Keefe, who pumped it out to his 3 million Twitter followers.
“Then all sorts of craziness broke loose,” Beard said.
We’d never heard this term before, but it rings true. In response to our reader survey about which issues the Pima County Board of Supervisors should spend more time addressing, a reader said: ”Remember Parkinson’s Law of Triviality, that the amount of time discussing an item will be opposite the amount of money involved.”
The Board of Supervisors is actually talking about turning the two parcels into a “park” as part of their floodplain mitigation plans for the neighborhood.
With Prop 414 coming up for a vote soon, You could really help a bunch of us with some of your famous analysis and information digging. Some questions I have and have heard from friends.
1. There have been many bonds, grants, etc. to help fund police & Fire over the last 20 years or so. Being able to see the year to year amount of total funding to these areas, broken down by general funding and special funding (grants, bonds, etc.) and where that money was spent (physical buildings, equipment, adding people (headcount) and pay levels.
2. What is the trend of emergency services pay level over time and how does Tucson compare to other major cities in Arizona?
3. I know that we have chronically been short staffed for police & (maybe fire). What are the staffing levels of these agencies, and can they be broken down by people who actually work crime and fires in the field and Office staff/management?
4. Anything else you feel would help us to understand where the money has gone to and how that looks against 414.
My impression is that during Covid, we got all sorts of special funding and used it to grow the budgets, and the budgets keep growing and growing but it does not seem to be solving the critical problems, such as how long it takes to get a police officer to respond to an issue, and what levels of issues actually get a response.
The choice of photo you posted of Jim Sinex seems more than a little "odd", to me. It's an "in your face" closeup that feels like a violation of personal space with an ominous tone. Were there no other photos available?