On Friday afternoon, the Tucson City Council got a “menu” of options for how to fill the estimated $17 million hole in next year’s budget via a mix of unappetizing program cuts and tax hikes.
The biggest entrée offered up by Tucson City Manager Tim Thomure is eliminating free transit, which would generate an estimated $8.5 million in revenue for city coffers.
Technically, the menu, AKA a 15-page memo, didn’t elaborate on how the city plans to generate millions in recurring revenue for the city’s Transportation Department, but charging people to ride the bus again is the only option that could generate millions in revenue.
Get down to City Hall this evening to tell your council how you feel about these options.
A study on how much the city could save by re-instating fares hasn’t been publicly released, but several council members have been openly discussing eliminating free fares, estimating it could bring in around $10 million.
It’s unclear whether that estimate accounts for the cost of reinstating fare collections or includes the price of a recent cash infusion to increase security on city buses.
And while reinstating bus fares could go a long way to solve a roughly $17 million budget deficit, it will force a political showdown between Council members Paul Cunningham and Nikki Lee — who want a serious discussion on fares — and Council member Miranda Schubert, who made preserving fare-free transit a cornerstone of her campaign last year.
The rest of the council — with the exception of newcomer Council member Selina Barajas — have repeatedly voted for fare-free transit, albeit during better economic conditions.
Fares are not the only item on the “budget menu of options.” (It's the term used by the city manager’s office, so don’t blame us for the strained metaphor.)
Included in the roughly three dozen suggestions are temporary hiring freezes, eliminating the 311 system, slashing a majority of the costs associated with the STAR Village pilot program and closing two fire stations.
The menu also includes nearly $4 million in proposed cuts in the parks department. Those cuts would include reducing the number of operations to six regional parks, cutting back city pool operations while increasing fees for some groups, and cutting back on maintenance.
The parks department base budget is $66 million, so cutting a chunk out of that could be an appetizing option for the council, which doesn't have a lot of good options to balance the budget. 1
What they didn’t cut
There are some sacred cows in the budget proposal so far.
While the council is being asked to take a closer look at closing two fire stations, the police department’s budget is largely untouched, with the exception of a goal to reduce overtime, but there is no specific budget goal attached.
Layoffs of full-time staffers are not specifically mentioned in the budget documents. City staffers have told their bosses at employee-only town halls they would prefer to see hiring freezes to meet budget goals.
To be clear, the menu being offered by Thomure is ultimately up to the council, which will craft next year’s budget. And some of the options don’t have a lot of details — just a description and the price.
The fight is over the roughly $750 million in the city’s general fund, where the council can actually make changes year-to-year, not the roughly $2.7 billion total annual budget. The latter budget is far harder to change due to legal and contractual obligations, including bonds, pension plans and healthcare for city employees, as well as enterprise funds like Tucson Water.
The city’s enterprise funds — water, trash/recycling, parking and the city’s share of its highway user fund — are relatively siloed from Tuesday’s budget discussion, although Thomure has outlined spending for large capital projects in those departments for the next five years.
But there is some good news.
At the start of the year, the city was facing a $40 million budget hole for the next fiscal year. On Friday, staff lowered that figure to approximately $16.8 million after the council signed off on a number of tax increases, as well as eliminating temporary staff positions in the parks department.
While the menu lists $20.8 million in cuts that will lead to annual savings, it also has about $3 million in “one-time” savings.
How did we get here?
It has been an open secret for months that the city has been bracing to make tens of millions of dollars in cuts in its upcoming budget.
The budget hole is the culmination of a number of things, including expiring federal grants tied to the Biden administration, tax revenues falling short of forecasts and a decline in tourism-related revenue from both Mexico and Canada.
Mayor Regina Romero has been vocal about the state’s flat tax — signed into law by then-Gov. Doug Ducey — hurting the city economically.
A projection offered by the city suggests it would be on track to bring $152 million in state-shared revenue next year if the flat tax hadn’t been adopted. But because of the flat tax cut, the city will only pull in $116 million.
And while Romero’s political allies and other members of the council have decried the flat tax, Ducey is still defending it.
And while the council will start digesting and debating their options at tomorrow's study session, they still have about two and a half months to fully hammer out a budget.
The hard deadline is July 1, the start of the next fiscal year.
There are plenty of ways to get involved in the city’s budget fight, but nothing is better than showing up in person. Call to the public starts at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday night at City Hall.
Don’t let the budget discussions distract you — there is a lot more on the Tucson City Council study session agenda on Tuesday.
It is not lost on us that a discussion on a recommended compensation plan for employees — including a 1.5% raise for many city employees — is on the same day as a budget discussion focused on cutting millions of dollars.
This is part of a larger, three-year plan designed to both retain employees and be more competitive with the private sector. Separate agreements with both the police and the fire unions will also play a large role in Tuesday’s study session discussion.
The council will also get an update on public feedback about regulating data centers. Unsurprisingly, the public is largely opposed to any kind of data center in Tucson. But completely restricting data centers from operating within city limits would likely invite a serious property rights lawsuit. A first draft of the policy will go before the council, but we expect there will be a second draft.
“I reject the assumption that a data center is inevitable here in Tucson,” wrote one Tucsonan.
The council will also formalize the decision to remove César Chávez’s name from the Dolores Huerta holiday. The discussion will allow officials to consider removing Chávez’s name from city assets. Last week, Mayor Regina Romero and South Tucson Mayor Roxanna Valenzuela sent a letter to ADOT seeking help removing his name from the South Sixth Street bridge.
Finally, the council also set aside time to review the upcoming franchise agreement renewal with Tucson Electric Power, with plans to put it before voters this fall. The complicated agreement — including the recently approved energy collaboration agreement — would bring in approximately $16 million per year to city coffers.
Waste not, want not: For the past two years, Tucson Water failed to meet state requirements for tracking lost water, the Arizona Daily Star’s Tony Davis reports. The municipal utility reported 11% of its drinkable water was lost or unaccounted for in 2024 and 2025, while the state requirement is no more than 10%. That’s not just a local issue for Tucsonans worried about their water bills. Officials still haven’t worked out a deal on the future of sharing Colorado River water, which could mean cuts to the Central Arizona Project that supplies some of Tucson’s water.
Blanket approval: Support for RTA Next wasn’t contained to a few pockets of voters; it was widespread across Pima County, the Tucson Sentinel’s Jim Nintzel reports. The ballot measures passed in every City of Tucson ward, as well as in Marana, Oro Valley, Sahuarita and South Tucson. But turnout wasn’t as uniform. It ranged from 16% in South Tucson to 41% in Oro Valley.
Harder than it looks: Four years after three soup kitchen volunteers were elected to lead South Tucson, they look back on the realities of being in charge, instead of calling for change from outside the government, Arizona Public Media’s Nick Rommel reports. As city council members, they’ve had to deal with crime at apartment complexes owned by a “slumlord,” helping the local business community, the loss of Food City and much more.
“It’s easier to be yelling and screaming and demanding change than to actually be in government, strategizing and executing something that is going to give lasting results,” Mayor Roxanna Valenzuela said.
Bringing the drama: Santa Cruz County and downtown Tucson are the backdrop of a major TelevisaUnivision primetime telenovela, Jacqueline Aguilar reports for KGUN. The remake of the 1970s telenovela “Hermanos Coraje” is filming at ranches in Tubac and Tucson sites like the Pima County Historic Courthouse, which brings millions of dollars to Southern Arizona. One advantage of filming in Southern Arizona, per the telenovela’s director, is the availability of working ranches where hundreds of head of cattle are gathered together, rather than spread out across several ranches as they would be in Mexico.
One advantage of doing local journalism in Southern Arizona is the availability of so many interested readers gathered together. Click this button and join the herd.
The war at home: The Tomahawk missile that killed nearly 170 people at a girls’ school in Iran likely was made in Tucson, which raises thorny ethical questions for Raytheon employees, Star columnist Tim Steller writes after speaking with a half-dozen current and former employees. For some, using missiles as an offensive weapon “completely shattered” the idea of “ethical defense.” Other former employees, like Cochise County Supervisor Frank Antenori, who served in combat as a Green Beret, said he didn’t see any ethical conflicts. Instead, “having a weapon that gives you the advantage helps you come home,” he said.
Here are the top events this week for those who want a front-row seat to local politics.
The Democrats of Greater Tucson meet virtually today at noon. The guest speaker is Democratic Rep. Alma Hernandez, who is running for the LD20 senate seat. (Register)
The Pima County Board of Supervisors will meet on Tuesday at 9 a.m. at 130 W. Congress St. Here’s the agenda / livestream.
The Pima County Republican Club meets on Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. at The Kettle just west of I-10 on 22nd St.
The Tucson City Council will meet for its study session at 10 a.m. on Tuesday and start its regular session at 5:30 p.m.
The Arizona Corporation Commission will hold a public hearing on the Tucson Electric Power’s request for a 14% rate increase at 5:30 p.m. The meeting will be held at the State of Arizona building, located at 400 W. Congress. (More information.)
The South Tucson City Council will meet at 6 p.m. on Tuesday inside South Tucson City Hall, located at 1601 South 6th Avenue in South Tucson. The agenda can be found here.
The Oro Valley Town Council will meet on Wednesday at 6 p.m. The agenda and the livestream can be found here.
Did we miss an event? Email Joe to get it on our radar.
After the University of Arizona’s painful loss to Michigan on Saturday, we might never know whether major players in the Pima County Democratic Party would choose local politics over watching live what would have been the UA men’s basketball team’s biggest game in a decade — emphasis on “would have.”
Officials said they kicked around whether to postpone their executive committee meeting tonight — which includes the possible censure of Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos — since it was set to collide head-on with tip-off for the final game.
While the meeting is moving forward (and it’s closed to the press), we’re told they planned to let people appear virtually, presumably with one eye on the meeting and the other on the game.
1 That $66 million figure doesn’t include Reid Park Zoo, funding tied to the voter-approved Proposition 407 and existing grants.