It’s that time of year again when the Tucson City Council sets a cap on how much money the city will spend in the coming year.
That’s right, folks, it’s time to adopt a tentative budget.
When the council members convene tomorrow, they’ll be talking about setting a cap of $2.5 billion for fiscal 2027, which means it’s kind of a “speak now or forever hold your peace” moment as they sort out what they can and can’t afford.
After tomorrow, the council will be able to move money around within the budget, but each move will have to come at a cost to other departments, programs or services.
Today, we’re going to take a whack at one of our long-running goals: Making it fun to understand the budget.
We put together a quiz to help you wrap your head around the budget, without getting too far into the weeds.
We also just like figuring out all those little questions that rattle around in the back of our minds. How much money does the city make by providing water to residents? How about for trash pickup?
Before we get to the quiz, let’s do a quick refresher on what the council is dealing with right now.
Now that’s a colorful document for a city budget.
Tomorrow’s discussion is all but certain to include complaints about the state Legislature cutting funds that local governments like the City of Tucson need, and the fact that it’s difficult for a city to set its budget before state lawmakers set theirs.
It’s hilarious to us, but probably extraordinarily frustrating to council members, that lawmakers opted for a month-long vacation instead of negotiating and passing a budget. (What’s even funnier is some lawmakers are pushing for a pay raise right now, too.)
Anyway, the council members don’t have much control over what state lawmakers do.
Their concerns lie mostly with keeping the city running without cutting the services that city residents rely on, or just really would like to have. They also have pet projects and lofty goals they’d like to get funded next year, such as the STAR Village housing program or the “Transit Ambassador Program” to boost safety on city buses.
But what might be most concerning for city residents is how the council plans to make up for getting less money from the state and a drop in sales tax revenue.
The council already approved some rate increases — like upping the cost for parking downtown to as much as $90 a month — and tomorrow they’re going to talk about raising rates and adding new fees for services like water and using city parks.
If you’re upset paying more for city services, you might take a cue from local pickleball players. They protested at City Hall, made their case to individual council members and successfully avoided paying fees to use city-owned pickleball courts.
But the arrangement the city struck with the pickleball players might include the players picking up the tab for maintenance and resurfacing the courts. That deal is also up for discussion tomorrow.
As always, keep in mind that the bulk of that $2.5 billion budget is basically set in stone. Roughly two-thirds of the budget is legally obligated to pay for pensions, debt service and enterprise funds like Tucson Water.
We told you we wouldn’t get into the weeds too much today, so let’s get to that quiz!
Don’t forget: You can leave notes when you answer each question, and if you click the “continue” button, it’ll take you to a useful link, like a news story or a City of Tucson website that explains how the city works.
Let’s start with that water question. How much revenue does the city expect to make from providing water to residents?
How much money does the city make from Randolph Golf Course?
The city comes by every week to pick up your trash cans (even if sometimes you forget to put the cans out the night before and end up chasing the garbage truck down the street). How much revenue does the city get from picking up your trash?
How much do all those quarters and app payments for parking add up to?
Every time you buy something (for the most part), some of that sales tax goes to the state and then gets sent back to local governments. How much of that money goes to the City of Tucson?
Former Gov. Doug Ducey’s state flat tax is always a point of contention at City Hall. How much state income tax revenue do Tucson officials think the city will get next year?
We were all talking about the Regional Transportation Authority this spring when RTA Next went to the ballot. How much money does the city expect to get from the RTA next year?
Voters approved Prop 411 in 2022. How much sales tax revenue is that bringing in each year?
Voters approved a sales tax for the Reid Park Zoo nearly a decade ago. How much money is that going to bring in next year?
If you want to dive into the budget documents yourself, you can look through the state forms the city will submit or read the memo from CFO Anna Rosenberry.
Plenty of tools in the shed: Although the Pima County Board of Supervisors punted on whether to remove Sheriff Chris Nanos from office, the board still has plenty of other options, including some that former County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry probably would have used, Tucson Sentinel columnist Blake Morlock writes. Huckelberry would’ve applied pressure on Nanos through his department’s budget, Morlock writes, but if that’s not appealing to the supervisors they could also support the effort to recall Nanos.
Going up, going down: New census data shows Pinal County continues to be a population hotspot, per Arizona Public Media’s Nick Rommel. Four towns in Pinal County were among the top 10 fastest growing cities in the state over the past five years. As for Pima County, only Marana cracked the top 10 fastest growing cities. Cochise County didn’t fare very well, either. Cities like Sierra Vista, Bisbee and Douglas saw population declines. Meanwhile, a new analysis from the University of Arizona showed the Tucson area saw a 0.1% increase in non-farm jobs last year, which put it on a better footing than peer cities like Colorado Springs and Portland, but lagging cities like Austin and Salt Lake City.
Taking a new tack: After filing two lawsuits, Save the Scenic Santa Ritas placed a lien on the 169 acres of state land auctioned to Hudbay Minerals Inc for the Copper World mine, Tony Davis reports for the Arizona Daily Star. The lien filed at the Pima County Recorder’s Office casts a legal pall on the acres, which would make it harder for Hudbay to use the land to store mine tailings.
Crackdown fallout: Protests on the UA campus have been muted lately, especially compared to what they were like two years ago when the Israel-Hamas conflict erupted, Star columnist Tim Steller writes. UA police cracked down on the encampments that students set up in 2024, then the Trump administration accused universities of antisemitism. Now, some experts have come around to claims from protesters two years ago that the government of Israel is engaging in war crimes and genocide. But the state of play has changed so much that students and organizers are worried about speaking out.
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They were right: The Pima County Medical Examiner says Emmanuel Damas, the 56-year-old Haitian asylum seeker who died in ICE custody in March, died from an untreated tooth infection that spread to his neck, Paul Ingram reports for the Sentinel. The preliminary report from the medical examiner jibes with what Damas’ family said right after he died.
Solution, meet problem: As Tucson’s streets keep claiming the lives of pedestrians, city planners are installing more traffic signals on First Avenue to make it safer for pedestrians, per KGUN’s Craig Smith, who noted a jaywalker walked right behind Patrick Hartley of the city’s transportation department while they were doing an interview.
Baffled billionaire syndrome struck again on Friday.
Our tongue-in-cheek diagnosis, which we used last week to describe the guy who now runs the company that owns the Arizona Daily Star, showed up at the University of Arizona commencement ceremony on Friday.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt got booed repeatedly when he told UA students they should stop being afraid of AI (even though many of Schmidt’s tech buddies keep saying AI will eliminate the jobs that UA graduates are desperately trying to get).
After laying out how awful the world is — from polarized politics to climate change — Schmidt didn’t quite deliver the kicker he apparently was hoping for.
How’s this for an inspiring message for young people?
“The question is not whether AI will shape the world. It will. The question is whether you will help shape artificial intelligence,” Schmidt said, followed by a booming round of boos from the audience.