The Arizona Free Enterprise Club recently ran a story claiming that Arizona cities have been flush with cash from years of windfalls from the state.
In this age of partisan disinformation, misinformation, and plain ole BS, I generally don’t accept any published information without first verifying its accuracy through other sources or, if I have the time and inclination, through my own primary research.
Therefore, in response to the Club’s report, I decided to examine current and past budgets of my adopted hometown of Tucson.
Well, that was a mistake.
Tucson’s annual financial reports and budgets are not designed to be user-friendly. For instance, they don’t summarize in several charts and graphs how the latest budget compares to the budgets of prior years, what percent of revenue comes from the state and how that has changed over the years, the increase or decrease in per-capita spending from one year to the next, how spending on key services compares to other cities, and how city departments have performed on key metrics and against stated goals, especially in the hot-button areas of public safety, road maintenance and repaving, homelessness and homeless encampments, panhandling on street corners, pedestrian deaths, code enforcement, economic development, and the upkeep and beautification of parks, roadways and other public spaces.
See for yourself. The city’s Comprehensive Financial Report for the fiscal year of July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024 is at this link. You’ll find few easily-understood charts and graphs but pages and pages of mind-numbing numbers.
You’ll also find plenty of photos of prepared food, as if eating is unique to Tucson and is its main industry. It’s like reading the financial statements of the Golden Corral restaurant chain.
Not being hungry and not getting what I wanted from Tucson’s financial report, I turned to the financial and budgetary reports for the City of Scottsdale.
Why Scottsdale? Two reasons: one, my wife and I lived in Scottsdale prior to moving to Tucson for family reasons and remember it as the best-run city of all the places we’ve lived; and two, I was an unpaid community columnist for the Arizona Republic for seven years, covering the Northeast Valley of metro Phoenix, which included Scottsdale. As such, I was familiar with Scottsdale’s financial reports from having pored through them many times.
Although Scottsdale isn’t as big as Tucson in terms of population (246,068 vs. 542,629), its financial reports and budgets are much more user-friendly and informative. If, for example, you want to know how Scottsdale’s water rates and taxes compare to other cities, you can find out in the overview section of the report without having to wade through pages of indecipherable numbers.
There’s also a bar chart showing that 23 percent of the city’s revenue comes from the state.
See for yourself at this link.
What accounts for the smaller city outshining the larger one in providing information to residents?
Unlike Tucson, Scottsdale doesn’t have partisan elections or decades of being governed by a one-party monopoly. It also has to compete with 27 other municipalities in metro Phoenix in attracting people and businesses, by providing top-notch city services and first-class upkeep. By contrast, the City of Tucson and the surrounding unincorporated Pima County are controlled by the same one-party monopoly, a monopoly that covers 89 percent of the population of the Tucson metropolis, thus resulting in little political or municipal competition.
A tired counterargument from the Tucson establishment is that Scottsdale benefits from being wealthier than the Old Pueblo. But that wasn’t always the case, and its prosperity is evidence of what good governance and competition can bring.
Besides, the unincorporated Foothills section of metro Tucson has about the same median household income as Scottsdale but, in comparison, is dramatically lacking in amenities and services.
Here’s what the City of Scottsdale offers:
- 45 parks and 37 playgrounds
- 30,500 acres of preserved land with 230 miles of trails
- 5 urban lakes
- 39 basketball courts
- 4 aquatic facilities
- 30 pickleball and racquetball courts
- 2 skate parks
- 3 off-leash dog parks
- 51 tennis courts and 2 tennis centers
- 1 railroad park
- 10 equestrian arenas
- 1 baseball stadium
- 2 senior centers
- 6 community centers
- 125 miles of paved paths and 162 miles of unpaved ones
- 4 public libraries, including one that looks like this:
Here’s what the Foothills has: one tiny Pima County library branch in a storefront in a shopping center.
Granted, Scottsdale is much larger than the roughly 30 square miles of the Foothills, but even so, the residents of the Foothills only get a dinky library from the county. If they want to know where their taxes go, they won’t find out by reviewing the county’s budget, which is pitifully lacking in key information and dreadfully uninviting, as can be seen at this link.
No wonder the City of Tucson and Pima County don’t publish easily understood budgets and financials. The political monopoly that controls both doesn’t want to be voted out of office.
Mr. Cantoni can be reached at craigcantoni@gmail.com.
Here’s what the Foothills has: one tiny Pima County library branch in a storefront in a shopping center.
