P.L.A.N. Update - State Government Takes Over City Hall‏

Library operations . . . Outsourced.

Planning and zoning . . . Outsourced.

Domestic violence services. . . Outsourced.

Neighborhood code enforcement . . . Outsourced.

* * * * * * * * *

Over the last several weeks, we've been informing P.L.A.N. subscribers about Senate Bill 1322: Managed Competition; City Services, a measure introduced by Tucson Senator Frank Antenori that dictates how City of Phoenix services are procured.

Recent amendments mandate Phoenix to spend taxpayer dollars to undertake an outsourcing, bidding process for municipal services that cost more than $500,000 (sworn Police/Fire personnel, City attorneys/prosecutors, City judges, and the City manager and clerk's offices are exempt).

The City strives to operate every program and service with an eye towards fiscal discipline and accountability. We also recognize that the private sector can and should play a role. This is why Phoenix currently outsources $432 million over 350 service areas. Senate Bill 1322 ignores this fact and instead has the state legislature overriding the Phoenix Council, Manager and voter-approved Charter which governs the City. Your elected Mayor and Council would have no say in the matter.

Programs and services that would be up for bid include:

Domestic violence services
Library operations
Planning and zoning administration
Neighborhood code enforcement
Graffiti busters
Civilian components of the City's Homeland Security Operation
Unsworn personnel in the Police crime lab
Water and wastewater treatment facilities
Certain operations at Sky Harbor International, Goodyear and Deer Valley Airports
Emergency utility assistance
Homeless shelters and prevention programs
Senior center services
Budget management
Small business development program
Equal opportunity functions
Human resources and employee discipline

The bill is so sweeping that the City would even have to bid out the procurement office that would then implement the mandatory procurement functions for the rest of the City's services.

The Phoenix City Council voted to oppose this measure, yet it is now just one step away from the Governor's Office. Please contact the following Phoenix State Senators and the Governor's Office and ask them to please oppose this costly preemption of local control.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

The Honorable Jan Brewer
Governor of Arizona
1700 West Washington
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
602-542-4331
E-mail

Senators Representing the Phoenix Central Neighborhood

Kyrsten Sinema
Legislative District 15
Email: ksinema@azleg.gov
(P) 602-926-5058

Source: P.L.A.N.

P.L.A.N. Update - State Budget, City Budget - Maybe This Week a Federal Budget?

Legislature Agreed on 2011-2012 State Budget

Last week a state budget for FY 2011-2012 (with adjustments to FY 2010-2011) was unveiled, debated, approved, and sent to Governor Brewer for her signature. The House started by deliberating and passing the Senate's budget bills with minor modifications in order to address Arizona's $1.7 billion deficit. Most reductions in the bills focus on K-12 education ($183 million), universities ($198 million), and AHCCCS ($510 million). House members worked through the night and sent the budget package to the Senate on Friday morning, where senators debated and passed the package and transmitted it to the Governor that day.

While this state budget will impact the City, revenue sharing (voter-approved dollars that pay for about 30 percent of Phoenix's general fund) was held harmless. The State will have Phoenicians pay $2 million in new fees to fund its Department of Water Resources. In addition, the budget plan sweeps about $12 million in Highway User Revenue Funds from the City that otherwise would help pay for street construction and maintenance projects.

Phoenix Budget Condition

Also last week, the Phoenix City Council approved a proposed Trial Budget for the City, which will be discussed in 15 community budget hearings this month. Because the city budget is developed with input from the Mayor and City Council, residents, city employees, city management and all city departments, the result is a budget that closely reflects the community's highest priorities.

Residents can provide input on the 2011-2012 City budget, as well as on the draft Phoenix Strategic Plan, by attending any of the community budget hearings beginning April 7.

What can you do?

Attend your community hearing to tell your City Council member and city management what programs and services are most important to you.

Contact your State Senator and State Representatives to thank them for protecting Shared Revenues for cities and towns. Click on "Link to the P.L.A.N." below to go to your "My PLAN" page to find your legislators' contact information.

Source: P.L.A.N.

P.L.A.N. Update - We Just Can't Afford It‏

SB 1322 -- A Very Bad Deal for Phoenix Taxpayers Senate Bill 1322: Cities;Towns; Managed Competition (Sen. Frank Antenori, R-Tucson) would mandate that the cities of Phoenix and Tucson put out most city services for competitive bidding, and award contracts to the lowest bidder who can do the work, even if they're out of state or out of the United States. What would be the cost to the City of Phoenix to comply with the mandated competitive bidding requirements of SB 1322? The city's Finance Department estimates that the average cost for a typical, simple procurement is somewhere between $22,000 and $42,000. A complex procurement, such as Phoenix already conducts for services like solid waste, towing, and banking, costs considerably more -- in the $100,000 to $150,000 range -- because consultants with expertise are needed to help structure the scope of work, monitoring requirements, etc. The most complex procurements, like a water treatment plant or airport, would cost the city millions of dollars because of the very detailed contract provisions requiring input from engineers and other specialists in these highly regulated operations. How many of these procurements would the City would be required to do should SB 1322 be enacted? It is safe to say that it would be in the thousands. Phoenix's total operating budget in fiscal year 2010-2011 including enterprises such as Aviation and Water Services was over $3.5 billion -- $432 million of that is already outsourced to private sector firms. To bid out and manage contracts for the other $3.1 billion in operations would cost Phoenix taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. For the upcoming fiscal year 2011-2012, Phoenix projects an estimated General Fund deficit of about $59 million. Clearly Phoenix does not have the money or other resources needed to comply with the unfunded mandates of SB 1322. Please call or email your legislator today -- why is the State even considering this? Source: P.L.A.N.

P.L.A.N. Update - Who's In Charge Here?‏

SHOULD THE STATE RUN OUR CITY?

Earlier this week, state senators deliberated on two bills that would have state government dictate how city services are delivered in Phoenix.

Senator Frank Antenori – a Tucson legislator – is the sponsor of Senate Bill 1322: Managed Competition; City Services and Senate Bill 1345: Municipal Employees; Compensation, bills that would force the cities of Phoenix and Tucson to lay off thousands of employees, outsource each service or civilian job that costs more than $75,000 in total wages and benefits, and cap employee salaries.

The City of Phoenix’s voter-approved charter gives authority for hiring and setting wages and benefits to the City Manager, with oversight by the Mayor and Council. These two bills undermine the governing structure approved by Phoenix citizens.

Senator Antenori believes these bills will save taxpayer money and afford more opportunities for businesses to provide local services. The City agrees that competition can be beneficial. That's why Phoenix privatizes more than 350 services that infuse $432 million into the private sector and is currently studying ways to increase those numbers.

The proposed salary cap aims to tie public employee compensation to the average of private sector compensation. However, this mandate doesn't take into account the highly technical nature of many city jobs. For example, engineers, accountants, attorneys, chemists, and other professionals with advanced degrees and training would not receive the same level of compensation as their peers in other cities -- Phoenix would likely experience a "brain drain" as these professionals go to other local cities that aren't subject to this arbitrary cap.

The City strives to provide quality service while controlling costs. Today, Phoenix has fewer employees per capita than it did in 1972. Even in this difficult economic environment, the City budget remains balanced. We don't need the state to start telling us how to run the City. This is why Phoenix’s Mayor and Council have formally voted to oppose these bills.

The state faces countless challenges. Spending time and resources on legislation that targets only two cities with strong-arm state mandates does not seem prudent. Most people agree that the government closest to the people governs best. Please contact your state legislator and let them know that local officials, not a state senator from Tucson, are the ones you want to govern your city.

Source: P.L.A.N.

P.L.A.N. Update - New Development Should Pay for Itself‏

Impact Fees Impact You

Every legislative session it seems like there is another debate about "impact fees," sometimes called development fees. This year is no exception. SB 1525: City; Town; Development Fees was introduced by Sen. Russell Pearce (R-Mesa). Some at the legislature think this perennial debate is just another fight between homebuilders and cities, but it's much bigger than that -- impact fees impact you.

If you have purchased a new home in the last twenty years or so, odds are that the price of the home included the cost of an impact fee. The fee would have paid part of the costs for the subdivision's water and sewer lines, roads, storm drains and other infrastructure that you enjoy today. When a developer wants to build another new subdivision miles away, you probably don't want to pay for those new roads and sewer lines, too. That wouldn't be fair.

Phoenix created its impact fee program in 1988 to pay the costs of new infrastructure development in our rapidly growing city. The philosophy is simple: the costs of new roads, water and wastewater systems and other infrastructure should not be borne by residents of established areas; rather, new growth should “pay for itself.” Phoenix’s impact fee program charges the costs of new infrastructure development directly to builders, with credits and offsets available on a case-by-case basis. Impact fees are not a tax; the money that cities collect in impact fees is dedicated only to building the infrastructure that has been planned for the area they're collected in.

Any legislation that makes it harder for cities to set fees or to use them to build what's needed for a development is a problem for not just the city but all of its residents who don't want keep paying and paying for new infrastructure they'll probably never use. Right now the City of Phoenix opposes SB 1525 for those reasons. A vote on the bill is scheduled for Monday afternoon in the Senate. Please call your senator and tell him or her to vote NO. We don't need more changes to this important program.

Source: P.L.A.N.

P.L.A.N. Update - Felons with Liquor Licenses?

A bill that limits citizen and neighborhood input on liquor licenses quietly passed a legislative committee last week. Senate Bill 1460: Liquor Licensees; Records (Sen. Michelle Reagan, R-Scottsdale) was revised with a "strike-everything" amendment that makes numerous changes to the liquor license approval process. Among the changes is a troubling provision that would eliminate input from communities when an existing liquor license is transferred to a new applicant. That would prevent police from investigating people who request a liquor license transfer and make it nearly impossible to uncover hidden ownership of liquor establishments by individuals with a criminal background. The bill also creates new roadblocks for neighborhood associations that want to submit comments to be considered by the city or the State Liquor Board in evaluating liquor license applications. Many other process changes are proposed. Feel free to contact your legislators if you are interested in this issue.

Source: P.L.A.N.

P.L.A.N. Update - Yes, Really, Cities Asked to Pay for State Buildings‏

City Revenue Diverted to Pay For State Buildings

One of the items in last weeks' PLAN message was Senate Bill 1221: Urban Revenue Sharing; Distribution Freeze (Sen. Steve Pierce, R-Prescott). This bill would put a cap on the amount of revenue sharing to cities and towns from state income tax at fiscal year 2010 levels for the next 20 years. Future annual tax collections over the 2010 amount would be kept by the State and used to pay some of the State's financial obligations, including the debt service for the state buildings that were sold with a lease buyback agreement last year.

Shared revenues are a voter-approved system in which the state shares a small percentage of its income, sales and vehicle license taxes with Arizona’s 91 cities and towns. In return, cities are prohibited from having their own local income taxes.

Senate Bill 1221 violates the will of the voters and shifts monies that are used to help pay for police, fire, parks and library services from the cities to the state to pay for the state buildings it sold in 2010.

Last week we had hoped that the bill wouldn't get a hearing, but no such luck. The bill is scheduled for this Thursday's Senate Finance Committee at 9 a.m., in Senate Hearing Room 1 at the State Capitol (1700 W. Washington, Phoenix).

Please contact members of the committee and ask that they disapprove SB 1221. The complete list of the Senate Finance Committee and their e-mails are shown below. Thank you for all you do for our community!

Senate Finance Committee

Members Position E-mail Phone
Paula Aboud Member paboud@azleg.gov 602-926-5262
Scott Bundgaard Vice-Chairman sbundgaard@azleg.gov 602-926-3297
Ron Gould Member rgould@azleg.gov 602-926-4138
Jack Jackson Jr. Member jjackson@azleg.gov 602-926-5862
Lori Klein Member lklein@azleg.gov 602-926-5284
John McComish Member jmccomish@azleg.gov 602-926-5898
Steve Yarbrough Chairman syarbrough@azleg.gov 602-926-5863

Remember to SHOP PHOENIX and tell your legislators to protect City revenues that pay for important services such as police, fire, libraries, parks and street maintenance. Thanks for all you do for our community.

Source: P.L.A.N.