The Daily Agenda: It's all about the money

Two Dem candidates debate finer points of being county’s banker ... Santa Cruz County teaches Pima a lesson ... Time running out for abortion ballot signatures.

For the first time in decades, Pima County voters are going to elect a new Treasurer, and two candidates are trying to make sure the next one is a Democrat.

It’s a race that’s easy to overlook. The Treasurer’s Office doesn’t normally generate headlines, at least as long as it runs smoothly. But voters in Santa Cruz County got a harsh lesson on the importance of having a trustworthy treasurer a few weeks ago when $4 million went missing and the FBI began investigating then-Treasurer Elizabeth Gutfahr, who abruptly resigned.

Here in Pima County, the treasurer’s race came into focus when longtime Treasurer Beth Ford announced she was retiring. That set off mini-political campaigns to replace her and the county supervisors ended up appointing Ford’s handpicked successor, Chris Ackerley.

Ackerley is the only Republican candidate running for the office this year. He’ll face Sami Hamed or Brian Johnson, who are competing in the July 30 Democratic primary.

To give voters a better sense of where Hamed and Johnson stand on the issues handled by the county treasurer, the Democrats of Greater Tucson hosted a debate earlier this month, moderated by Curt, at the Flowing Wells Library.

Before we get into what they said at the debate, here’s a little bit about each candidate.

Hamed served on the board of directors and chaired the finance committee at the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and Blind, which is also where he went to high school before studying political science and Spanish at the University of Arizona. He was an aide to Congressman Raul Grijalva in Tucson and now works in the UA Athletics Department. He is a lifelong Tucsonan and ran for Tucson City Council in 2019 and for the state Legislature in 2010. (Here’s his campaign website)

Johnson worked for the county for 14 years, at the Assessor’s Office and the county’s finance department. He also represented Pima County on the Arizona State Board of Equalization. He ran for assessor in 2016 and 2020. Before moving to Pima County 26 years ago and settling in Picture Rocks, Johnson studied at the University of Vermont and East Stroudsburg University. (Here’s his campaign website)

Now let’s get to the debate.

Changes they’d make at the Treasurer’s Office

Hamed said he’d focus on improving customer service, a major theme in his campaign platform.

“You shouldn’t always have to come to us, at the Treasurer’s Office; the Treasurer’s Office should come to you,” he said.

He’d also work to avoid having people lose their homes due to delinquent taxes and roll out a financial literacy program for local schools.

Johnson sees a “need for a change in culture” to focus more on service to the public.

He’d beef up information technology for routine accounting and financial transactions. He’d offer better career opportunities to the clerical staff, who he says don’t have incentives to stay, which led to a dwindling number of employees at the Treasurer’s Office.

Johnson also would improve the office’s short-term investments, a topic he’d come back to again.

“I propose staff dedicated to working with the business community so that we can yield value from those investments that supports local prosperity,” Johnson said.

Sami Hamed

Do you see the Treasurer’s Office as a political office?

Johnson said the office is “primarily ministerial, but it doesn’t work in a political vacuum.”

He’d align the way the county invests public funds with the Prosperity Initiative the county supervisors recently adopted. Right now, climate resilience is part of that initiative, but the county’s investments don’t match that goal.

“When we’re paying attention to our investments, we wouldn’t likely be investing in fossil fuel companies like Chevron,” Johnson said.

The county’s investment report lists a $3.8 million investment in Chevron under “corporate bonds,” alongside $1.6 million from the Catalina Foothills Unified School District, $4.7 million from Caterpillar, and $5 million from Amazon, among others.

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Hamed said the only political aspect of the office is “who you elect.” But he does have ideas he’d like to set in motion if elected.

“The ideas I just talked about right now, those are my policy ideas. Some things I can do, some things I’m going to have to round up three votes on the board of supervisors to get done,” Hamed said.

Low-income residents who struggle to pay property taxes

The economy has been rough for 20 years, Hamed said, and people have a hard time paying for their homes, including property taxes.

“The ones who are getting affected by that are senior citizens. Those are the ones who are losing their homes and going into homeless shelters,” Hamed said.

He’d re-work the customer service division at the Treasurer’s Office so it would be “forward-facing, public-interacting.”

Instead of just getting a letter saying you’re behind on your taxes, he’d have staff call and say, “Hi, this is Sami from the Treasurer’s Office calling. We noticed you’re behind on your property taxes. We just wanted to inquire and see what’s going on.”

Then staff would help them get back on good financial footing, such as using state funds designed to help homeowners.

Johnson said the treasurer is legally obligated to collect taxes that are due. He noted most delinquencies are related to vacant land or commercial properties, rather than homeowners.

Most people with low incomes aren’t homeowners, he said, with the exception of seniors on fixed incomes. If they need help, the Assessor’s Office runs a Senior Property Valuation Protection program that can get them relief, he said.

Brian Johnson

Educating the public about the tax system

Johnson said there is a “definite need” to help the public understand how property tax is applied.

“Currently, the county administration has a property tax hot line that goes to the tax assembly unit in the Finance Department. Then, calls are directed to either the Treasurer or Assessor. Often this run-around causes frustration,” Johnson said.

He’d integrate the data systems used by the assessor and treasurer to make it easier to plan a commercial or residential development, “or to simply understand how an individual’s taxes are consistent in their neighborhood.”

Hamed said his solution would be “simple.” He’d model public outreach on the “robust” efforts by Assessor Suzanne Droubie to send staff to libraries and events to talk to the public about what her office does.

Right now, people get a tax bill that lists secondary property taxes, such as for fire districts, with various columns underneath. Hamed said he’d get out to into the community and explain it.

Voters will get their say in the treasurer’s race starting July 3, when early ballots are sent out. The primary election is July 30.

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This story was supported by the Local News Initiative of Southern Arizona, a fund of the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona.

On the job: Former Tucson-area state Rep. Andrés Cano has been tapped as the city government’s director of Federal and State Relations, the Tucson Sentinel’s Dylan Smith writes. In his new role, Cano will be responsible for obtaining grants for the city by strategically championing “Tucson’s legislative priorities by actively engaging with federal and state partners” to support the mayor and council’s work.

Words matter: Pima County Superintendent of Schools Dustin Williams breaks down what he calls the unfounded fear of the terms “Social Emotional Learning” and “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” in an opinion piece for the Arizona Daily Star. Williams said some legislators have developed a phobia to the terms, associating them with progressive political agendas and “vehicles for indoctrination rather than tools for personal and communal growth.” Instead, Williams argues, the terms and the programs behind them are “crucial for fostering well-rounded, inclusive, and empathetic communities.”

Final countdown: Signature collection in Tucson to get the Arizona Abortion Access Act will end Saturday to give organizers enough time to verify signatures and submit them to the Arizona Secretary of State by July 3, in order to make it onto the November ballot, the Arizona Luminaria’s Carolina Cuellar reports. State law requires at least 383,923 signatures to get the initiative onto the ballot, and while Arizona for Abortion Access has already surpassed that number, they want to ensure a robust cushion against invalid entries and show the scope of public support for abortion rights.

Downtown drama: Three downtown businesses were broken into earlier this week, with Tucson police saying they believe at least two of the incidents are related, KVOA’s Jafet Serrato reports. Surveillance video shows a man throwing a rock through the glass door of Charro Steak and Del Rey and running off with a cash register early Tuesday morning. The Neighborhood Bar Downtown and Cruda, two restaurants owned by Daniel Cordova, were also the subject of break-ins this week. Cordova said it appears from his surveillance footage that the same man is responsible for all three incidents.

$2 billion: The amount of money Pima County had in investments at the end of April.