Our memo to the next county administrator

Pima County supervisors are this close to hiring a new county administrator.

A decision is expected by the end of the month, but we thought we’d share our own “Welcome to Pima County” brochure for the two out-of-town candidates formally meeting with officials next week.

Our guide covers things that might not make it into the recruiter’s packet or turn up in a simple AI query. Sorry, Claude. Some things still require reporting.

Consider it a list of questions to ask county department heads and employees when you meet with them on Monday and Tuesday.

Before we begin, let’s introduce the three finalists: Deputy County Administrator Carmine DeBonis; Leonard Hernandez, a county manager in Washington state; and Leah Rhineheimer, assistant town manager in Gilbert.

Many assume that DeBonis, who has been with the county for more than three decades and has spent the last decade overseeing multiple departments as deputy county administrator, has the inside track. But that also means sharing credit for the county’s greatest hits — and answering for its failures.

Carmine, you can skip this edition. Everyone else, let’s get acquainted with what you’re signing up for.

Let’s start with the county’s $1.81 billion budget. You’ll be spending a lot of time on it.

The county isn’t facing the same budget problems as the City of Tucson this year, largely because it relies less heavily on sales taxes to fund operations.

But Pima County was forced to reduce its reserve fund balance requirements for two years to squeeze more money into the general fund, a sign of lean budget years.

Revenue outside of property taxes has largely been flat. Tourism has taken a hit from recent Trump administration policies, and the state’s move to a flat income tax under former Gov. Doug Ducey continues to squeeze county coffers.

That doesn’t mean anyone’s wish list inside the county is getting shorter.

As you mingle with county employees next week, maybe ask the sheriff about the biggest thing on his wish list, a new jail estimated to cost $800 million to replace the aging 40-year-old jail.

Then ask the finance department why Pima County is not putting that new jail on the ballot just yet, and why the people hiring you are instead discussing a much smaller $100 million bond proposal next year to address, among other things, repairs the county has been putting off.

We’ll get a better sense of whether voters are willing to back bonds in a few weeks. Pima Community College and the Joint Technical Education District each asking voters to sign off on a $250 million bond.

If voters reject them, supervisors could shelve the county’s own proposal and kick the can on addressing a host of issues for at least another year. And with it, deferred maintenance will continue to the county even more in the long-term.

The county is on the November ballot with Prop 425, a measure tied to raising the county’s expenditure limit. If it fails, the fallout lands on the next county administrator: deciding what gets cut when the county can’t legally spend money it already has.

But even without a new jail, you’ll have plenty to discuss with the sheriff.

He’s one of more than a dozen independently elected officials you’ll work with. They answer to the voters, while supervisors control their budgets.

Keeping the Pima County Sheriff’s Department within its budget has been a recurring source of friction across multiple sheriffs’ tenures, even as supervisors give the department more money each year.

And the sheriff is hardly the only one asking for more.

Roughly a year ago, department heads and elected officials were asked to submit their wish lists for the fiscal year 2027 budget. These were requests beyond the money needed to keep their departments running.

The lists totaled $49.6 million in “DREAM” requests, but only $15.8 million made it into County Administrator Jan Lesher’s recommended budget.

You can read the requests here, with a breakdown on page 567. Yes, it’s that long.

But like we said at the beginning, not everything budget-related is contained in some archaic document.

The region is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis, but the supervisors rejected putting more toward building homes, despite a request from the coutny’s Affordable Housing Commission.

The county has a goal of fixing roads so that less than 5% will be rated as being in serious or critical condition by 2030. Lean budget years could move that goal into the wish list category.

A county report suggestions 40% of the jail population needs medication assisted treatment and 14% has a mental health diagnosis. Addressing the issue is driving up costs running the facility

Again, consider asking local (county) union members whether recent pay increases are keeping up with inflation. The board approved roughly $10 million to boost pay for employees earning less than $45,000 a year.

That addresses one problem, but creates pressure to solve another: What about employees making just above that threshold? Adjusting their salaries could cost an additional $20 million annually.

Imagine working for the county for 10 years, making $46,000 and watching lower-paid colleagues get raises while you don’t get a nickel. Expect that to come up.

A word of advice to the candidates: Your two-year contract would put your renewal roughly after the next election for all five supervisors. The people who hire you might not be the same people discussing whether to renew your contract.

We’ve heard at least one supervisor might be retiring, while others are expecting serious challenges to their reelection bids.

Recall talk targeting two supervisors peaked last year, shortly after the board approved the much-derided Project Blue data center, dividing the four-person Democratic majority and giving the lone Republican the deciding vote.

And the fight over data centers will be waiting for you, too.

Public trust took another hit when residents learned the county had been quietly working on a second data center near Sahuarita. The county is bound by a nondisclosure agreement covering Project Gravel and had to water down a recent 120-day moratorium to exempt both data center projects.

The supervisors moved quickly to update their nondisclosure policies after the Project Blue transparency debacle, but activists are angry that a second project remained under wraps until we broke the story.

And right around the corner is a new code amendment designed to regulate data centers - which could lead to a new round of legal challenges.

A majority of the supervisors are already at odds with Hudbay’s Copper World Mine, worried about the damage it will do to the environment and long-term water supply. And that fight isn’t going to go away anytime soon.

Another potential major employer — American Battery Factory — has been stalled for years, struggling to find millions in funding.

All while 25,000 people in Pima County lost their healthcare in the last year, according to Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) records. More are likely to lose their insurance associated cuts in federal spending associated with the “Big, Beautiful Bill” kicks in.

And then there’s the Legislature.

Pima County might be blue politically, and Arizona might be purple, but the Legislature has been solidly red for decades. Local officials have plenty of examples of lawmakers trying to limit what the county can do.

This year, one fight was over an attempt to sweep voter-approved Rio Nuevo funding. Ask local politicos about previous years, and they’ll have a list.

You’re interviewing for a job in Pima County. Some of your headaches will come from Phoenix.

One last piece of advice from us. Keep the tradition of posting the county administrator memos on the website in real time.

Your predecessors have been doing it for 13 years and it is the single best example of public transparency coming out of the county right now. Don’t stop now.