The Daily Agenda: No easy answers on Prop 413

How did we end up with Prop 413? … Look to the archives! … Tucson area breaks border records.

How much should Tucson’s mayor and council get paid? 

There’s no easy answer and no objective measure to point to. It’s just whatever voters want it to be. And voters will get their say on Nov. 7 when they decide whether to approve Prop 413. 

If they approve Prop 413, the salaries of the mayor and council members will be tied to the salaries of the Pima County Board of Supervisors. So the mayor’s salary would jump from $42,000 to $96,000 and the council members’ salaries would go from $24,000 to $76,000. It would be their first raise since 1999.

When the supervisors get a scheduled pay raise in 2025, the city’s elected officials would get a raise, too. The mayor would end up making $121,000 and council members would get $96,000.

Ballots are arriving in mailboxes and the debate over Prop 413 is swirling around Tucson. Supporters of Prop 413 say the pay raises would allow working-class people to afford to serve on the city council and pave the way for more women to hold office. They also would make serving as mayor or a city council member a ”real job.”

Critics say the authors of Prop 413 tried to hide the dollar amount of the pay raises to hoodwink voters. Or that the commission should have made it an incremental increase, instead of such a big jump. 

So how did we end up with Prop 413? To answer that question, we dove into the archives of the Citizens’ Commission on Public Service and Compensation, which is formed every two years per the city charter to decide whether to give the mayor and council a raise. 

Over the course of five meetings in February and March, the seven commissioners wrestled with most, if not all, of the issues voters are thinking about today. With one big caveat. 

Right off the bat, it was clear this was not going to be a debate about whether the mayor and council should get raises. The commissioners were geared toward finding a way to raise those salaries. They called the current salaries “appalling,” “atrocious,” “criminal,” and said a raise was “long overdue.” (When we wrote about Prop 413 last month, we called them “embarrassingly low” but “criminal” might be a stretch—a lot of Tucsonans make less than the mayor.)

The commissioners were all appointed by City Manager Michael Ortega, who spoke to them early on about how hard the mayor and council worked. He said he had a “front-row seat for what they do and how they do it on a day-to-day basis” and called their compensation “archaic.”

The commissioners faced one major hurdle: State law says a proposition can’t have more than 50 words in its description, Dennis McLaughlin from the City Attorney’s Office explained to the commissioners. (For context, this paragraph that you’re reading right now is exactly 50 words, including this sentence surrounded by parentheses.)

Commissioners considered recommending a static number for the salaries, which would be the simplest solution. They were aware that previous commissions had tried that and they were concerned commissioners 20 years from now would be in the same situation, where voters hadn’t approved a pay raise for two decades.

So they talked about creating a formula that would lead to incremental increases over the years. 

But which formula? One of their first impulses was to tie it to the median income in Tucson.

Well, would that be the full-time median income or the general median income, which is much lower due to part-time workers? Or should they use the average income? Wait, are we talking about the median household income or the median individual income?

You see how quickly it gets complicated?

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A simple solution would be to just look at the salaries of cities roughly the same size as Tucson, right? 

Well, how do you account for the different structures of government? Some cities have a mayor who’s responsible for basically everything. Some lean more on city managers. And some have council members who do hardly anything.

What about when it would take effect? Commissioners were barred by law from having the raise apply to the current council members. Should it be after every current member of the council has been up for re-election, in 2025? The commission ended up deciding on this December, after the election. 

Throughout it all, commissioners tried to balance what they thought the salaries should be with what they thought voters would actually approve.

They pointed to the simple messaging that led to the landslide success of Prop 411, which basically asked voters “should we have a half-cent sales tax to fund roads?” No fuss, no muss.  

Despite their best efforts, they eventually found themselves in the position that every writer encounters at one point or another: You can barely understand what you just wrote.

After weeks of debate, commissioners had settled upon $56,000 for council members and $70,000 for mayor. But it was wrapped in legalese they thought would be indecipherable to voters. And they were concerned voters would think they were trying to hide something with confusing language.

Then, an eleventh-hour conversation with Councilmember Lane Santa Cruz swayed a few commissioners and they took their message to the rest of their colleagues. Santa Cruz has advocated for better pay since at least February, when she made a presentation about good governance at the council’s retreat. 

In a nutshell, Santa Cruz asked the commissioners how businesses determine salaries. In many cases, a salary is based on responsibilities. So are the responsibilities of a council member more similar to the Pima County Supervisors or to an assistant manager at a grocery store, which is roughly what council members are paid today?

The supervisors’ salaries had come up briefly in previous meetings, but the idea of tying city officials’ salaries to the supervisors caught fire at the commission’s last meeting.

Tying those salaries would bring the mayor and council up to a pay range the commissioners thought they deserved. Tucson and Pima County officials manage a similar budget and similar population. It was simple and didn’t require a long explanation. 

They were a little worried the state Legislature, which sets the salaries of county supervisors, could use it as another way to punish Tucson officials. But they ended up leaving that problem for future commissioners. 

They were still concerned voters might not know how much supervisors were paid, and considered trying to work it into the proposition. But in the interest of keeping the language simple, they ended up deciding to put the dollar amounts in the “Choice is Yours” pamphlets that would go out to voters. 

The proof is in the pudding, so we’ll see on Nov. 7 whether the commissioners were able to write a proposition that appeals to voters. One thing’s for sure, they put in the time and took their best shot.

Breaking records: The Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector saw a surge in migrant family apprehensions in the 2023 fiscal year and apprehended nearly 347,000 people, Arizona Public Media’s Danyelle Khmara reports. Newly released federal data shows that border officials across the country apprehended more than 3.2 million unauthorized migrants, setting a nationwide record. The Tucson Sector saw the largest increase in families in any Southern border enforcement region, with the percentage increasing from less than 7% of encounters in 2022 to more than 35% in fiscal year 2023, which ended in September.

No cars allowed: Tucson’s biannual car-free party is back this weekend, with Cyclovia taking place on Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., This is Tucson’s Gloria Knott writes. This marks Living Streets Alliance’s 20th Cyclovia event, with the route running from the downtown and Fourth Avenue areas to Fontana Avenue just north of Fort Lowell road. There are five hubs along the route which include a beer garden, more than 20 food vendors, bike repair stations, activities and resources and a bingo-style treasure hunt.

On cloud wine: Santa Cruz County is seeking community input on the development of a Sonoita wine district, the Patagonia Regional Times reports. The county’s Community Development Department is looking into a project that would turn the Sonoita region into a wine and culinary destination, but wants to know what kinds of amenities and uses residents would like within the potential wine district. Community members can submit feedback through a short, online survey.

Check those credentials: Ten school boards in Pima County have approved a resolution asking the Arizona School Boards Association to conduct a “thorough and independent investigation” into its appointment of an executive director who is accused of falsifying his resume and “take immediate corrective actions,” the Arizona Republic’s Ray Stern reports. Devin Del Palacio, a Tolleson Union High School governing board member, is alleged to have falsely claimed to have a college degree. 

Improvements ahead: The City of Tucson Department of Transportation and Mobility is hosting two public input sessions this week about upcoming pedestrian safety and walkability improvements on Sixth Street from Campbell Avenue to Country Club Road and on Fifth Street from Country Club to Alvernon Way. The city is gathering input on design plans, with an emphasis on the proposed street lighting included in the project, which will include complete and connected sidewalks on both sides of the road, enhanced street crossings, improved lighting and landscape to provide shade.

Taking the lead: For the first time in nearly two decades, the number of students from India outnumber Chinese students at the University of Arizona, El Inde Arizona’s Tanya Ence writes. This makes Indian students the largest international student group on campus, making up 20% of the school’s international student population. Records show that Chinese students have represented the largest international group on campus since 2004, with Indian students taking the lead this year by a single percentage point.

The next meeting of the solutions-focused community book club that Caitlin is hosting with the Community Foundation of Southern Arizona and Tucson Tome Gnome is set for Nov. 30, and we have some new community partners this time around. Primavera Foundation, Social Venture Partners Tucson, Frances McClelland Institute for Children, Youth, and Families and Pima County Community & Workforce Development will also be joining us to discuss Matthew Desmond's "Poverty in America" after a short presentation. Refreshments will be served and the event is free, but you need to RSVP in advance.