Every year, your county officials quietly meet to figure out how to spend more than a billion of your tax dollars.
On Tuesday, a majority of the Pima County Board of Supervisors signed off on a $1.81 billion budget. 1
It’s a convoluted, multistep process that largely leaves out the public until a draft version is released. Then, over the final few months, supervisors, unions and advocacy groups begin fighting over how to use the county checkbook for the fiscal year that starts on July 1.
So while our sister publication whipped up a recipe for the state budget last year, we’re going to explain the county budget through Freytag’s Pyramid — the dramatic structure most people associate with Shakespeare.
Now is the winter of our discontent
Very quickly, let’s walk through the six stages of the county budget.
Like many Shakespearean tragedies, it builds slowly, peaks with a bang when the draft budget is released, and ends with a whimper when everyone is bureaucratically exhausted from fighting over every last dollar before the deadline.
Exposition: In October, each county department and elected row office — sheriff, treasurer, courts, assessor and others — begins working on its budget. This is when departments submit supplemental requests that aren’t currently funded and present realistic wish lists for administration to consider.
Inciting incident: In January, individual budgets are due to County Administrator Jan Lesher’s desk.
Rising action: In April, revenue projections for the next fiscal year and year-to-date spending reports arrive as Lesher posts the initial, base budget.
Climax: This is where reporters, community groups and politicians start picking apart what is and isn’t in the budget. Groups lobby for projects, politicians ask for more staff and funding, and others complain about potential property tax hikes. Basically, it’s the fanfare that comes after Lesher drops the draft budget.
Falling action: In May and into June, the county releases revised revenue projections, updated departmental spending and fiscal curveballs — think state mandates or federal funding changes — that begin shaping the conversation. These alone can turn a projected surplus into a deficit.
Dénouement (or resolution): This is the endgame. Groups meet privately with supervisors and county administration or publicly plead for funding during board meetings. Years ago, the county held marathon sessions asking each department to present their budget, but now they have to plead during a call to the audience like everyone else.
This was the county’s budget timeline in February. Note that supervisors missed the June 16 goal of adopting the budget — but that was mostly because they changed their meeting schedule.
Sometime in June, wish lists are whittled down or killed entirely before supervisors sign off on a budget. This year, there’s $1.81 billion in planned spending.
The fault is not in our stars
During a budget retreat in February, Lesher explained why she asks departments to submit a wish list, or what county officials call a “DREAM”2 list.
“We ask departments to dream … it was important for the Board to not only see what departments might need next year, but what they are thinking for the next 3 to 5 years,” Lesher said.
There’s one small problem: Departments submitted $40.4 million in requests for next year. By the time of the February retreat, Lesher was only considering $10.2 million of them.
Another $15.6 million was set aside for employee compensation to help retain workers and stay competitive in the job market.
Then came the black hats of the story — the people delivering budget forecasts based on reports from the state's Joint Legislative Budget Committee, property tax estimates and projections about how departments are managing their money.
That matters for one simple reason: those forecasts shape how much money supervisors have available to spend.
Take the Pima County Sheriff's Department. Its budget generally increases every year and, sometimes, it still ends the fiscal year in the red. Many sheriffs and county administrators have fought over budgeting, but blocking funding for more deputies is rarely a politically popular position.
Meanwhile, money left over in departmental coffers at the end of the fiscal year is often rolled into one-time projects, carried over into the next budget cycle or tucked away in financial reserves.
Lesher dropped the draft budget for the county in April, in which she wrote the spending plan was in line with major priorities set by the county supervisors.
The county administrator released the base budget without knowing what the state budget would ultimately look like. County administration was also still negotiating with at least one union.
You have to start somewhere.
We’re not going to call it pork, but this is where supervisors begin exercising their political leverage.
The final budget added employees back into the county health department after county supervisors lobbied Lesher, which offset declining revenue tied to expiring COVID-era grants from the Biden administration.
What’s past is prologue
The county’s budget fights looked different from those at the City of Tucson, where officials got creative this year to address a once-projected $40 million budget hole.
That meant targeted layoffs, increased fees and asking some departments — like the city’s 311 system — to do more with less.
But that doesn’t mean there weren’t last-minute fights at the county.
Supervisor Jennifer Allen got funding for rural roads. Two unions lobbied supervisors for raises.
And the County voted to take on adult education at the Pima County Jail at a cost of $170,000 after Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos canceled the contract with Pima Community College. County staff said funding historically came from a special revenue fund, but that funding has dried up.
On the campaign trail, elected officials love to say the budget is a moral document.
We’re here to tell you it’s also a living document.
No one has to formally reopen the budget if a department runs into the red or a grant gets held up by a surprise executive order. County officials simply move money around.
Which, we’ll concede, is probably a giant headache for bureaucrats — and occasionally elected officials.
Shakespeare wrote that “all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.”
Fortunately for Pima County, the budget process is slightly less dramatic. But only slightly.
A reprieve, reversed: Tucson DACA recipient Karla Toledo is facing renewed removal proceedings after immigration officials refiled charges they had previously dismissed, the Arizona Daily Star’s Emily Bregel reports. Local officials, including Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva and Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, joined Toledo at a press conference Monday to announce the renewed legal fight.
Taxes are hard: Some disabled veterans in Cochise County are now on the hook for property taxes they were told they wouldn’t owe after the Assessor’s Office mistakenly approved their exemption applications without verifying household income, KGUN9’s Alexis Ramanjulu reports. Assessor Philip Leiendecker said his office misinterpreted part of the state law, and affected veterans can’t reapply this year since the deadline has passed.
Detoured dollars: As major Tucson road projects detour traffic, they’re also steering customers away from nearby businesses, the Tucson Sentinel’s Mia Kortright reports. The 22nd Street Bridge closure has already hurt shops like Purple Penguin Candy Emporium, whose owner says sales are down 30% to 40%. And with six more RTA-backed road improvement projects underway or on the way, the RTA’s MainStreet Business Assistance Program is trying to help businesses prepare before the construction cones arrive.
A controversial substation? The Southern Arizona Energy Alliance is praising Tucson officials for approving TEP’s planned Vine Substation near Banner-University Medical Center, arguing the project is needed to keep Tucson’s power grid reliable as the region grows, per an Arizona Daily Star op-ed by Larry Lucero, Frank Grijalva and former Pima County Board of Supervisors Chair Sharon Bronson. But neighbors aren’t happy the power lines feeding the substation will remain overhead instead of being placed underground, and city hall insiders are expecting a lawsuit to slow construction.
Two visions, one valley: The two candidates running to become Oro Valley’s next mayor are ramping up their campaigns to replace outgoing Mayor Joe Winfield. Former Pima County Sheriff Mark Napier called the race an “irresistible opportunity” after living in the town for more than 30 years and said he has ideas to make Oro Valley more financially sustainable, KGUN9’s Kenny Darr reports. Vice Mayor Melanie Barrett, meanwhile, says the town is already on solid financial footing, and that her eight years on the council have prepared her for the job.
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Court reports: The Town of Sahuarita is appealing a federal judge’s decision to let a jury decide whether police officers violated the civil rights of a pastor and his wife when they broke down the couple’s door during a 2023 welfare check, Green Valley News’ Kim Smith reports. Officers reported finding broken glass, blood and firearms inside the home, but didn’t make any arrests after the pastor’s wife denied domestic violence occurred. And in Santa Cruz County, a federal bribery case against a local business mogul appears close to collapse after an appeals court ruled that FBI agents misled judges to obtain a wiretap, per KVOA.
Arizona’s FY2027 budget includes harmful cuts and inaction that collectively weaken Arizona’s education‑to‑workforce ecosystem and have a negative impact on the state’s ability to remain competitive for the jobs of the future. Negative impacts include:
The elimination of key education and workforce investments
Cuts to public universities
Continued lack of support for Maricopa and Pima community colleges
Failure to advance a Prop 123 renewal
Lack of ESA accountability measures
And not addressing concerning declines in critical Arizona Education Progress Meter indicators
State leaders have repeatedly chosen a tax and budget structure that leaves fewer dollars available for education, while voters expect the state to make education a top priority. In many respects, Arizona is now seeing the consequences of decisions it has made over time.
The disconnect between voter expectations and the decisions reflected in this budget should be deeply concerning to everyone who cares about the future of the State’s economy.
Read Education Forward Arizona’s full FY2027 State Budget Response to learn more about the implications for learners, employers and Arizona’s long-term competitiveness.
“Are there any reporters in the room?”
It was at that precise moment that Joe knew the evening had taken a turn for the worse.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Andy Biggs said he was no longer going to tell the roughly 90 people gathered for his “Latinos for Biggs” rally in Green Valley on Monday night his story about President Donald Trump he had teased only a few seconds earlier.
Because, apparently, that’s not a story you tell when reporters are around.
We had been invited to the rally, which now feels a little like being invited to a birthday party only to watch someone hide the cake when you walk through the door.
Instead, Biggs told a different story — and, to his credit, he does a pretty good Trump impression — about his time in the House Freedom Caucus, where he was personally lobbied by President Donald Trump and then-Vice President Mike Pence to kill Obamacare. Still, Biggs said Trump never explicitly told them how to vote.
It was interesting. Educational, even. But it wasn’t the story.
Andy, we’re not mad. We’re just disappointed.
So here’s our standing offer to Biggs: after November — whether you’re governor-elect or simply have a little more free time on your hands — come sit down with us and tell the story that disappears whenever someone asks if reporters are in the room.
Because now we really want to hear it.
1 We can get into the weeds about strategic voting another day, but you only need three votes to pass the budget — including any tax hikes that come with it.
2 DREAM stands for Department Request for Expenditure Authority and Money.