Update IV: Opposition to Prop. 200 continues to grow

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Some of you may say to yourself, "oh sure, opposition to the Public Safety First Initiative (Prop. 200) is just those lefty Democrats." You'd be wrong.

In two online opinions today in the Arizona Daily Star, the uber-libertarian Goldwater Institute and the uber-conservative Arizona Tax Research Association weigh in against Prop. 200. It is a rare moment of bipartisan agreement between the left and right on which we all agree that Prop. 200 is bad public policy.

Nick Dranias from the Goldwater Institute writes Proposition mandates huge expansion of city's payroll (excerpt):

Prop. 200 is marketed as an effort to focus Tucson on giving priority funding to core local government services — law enforcement, emergency medical services and fire protection — in order to generate better response times. But the truth is it would just mandate more government spending with no strings attached.

Proposition 200 would amend Tucson's Charter to mandate the hiring of significantly more police, emergency medical service and fire personnel, which would in turn require even more spending on infrastructure and equipment.

The hiring mandates would be imposed on city taxpayers regardless of economic circumstances, and they won't be cheap. Independent audits estimate Prop. 200 would cost $150 million over the next five years.

There's nothing in Prop. 200 that limits spending on the new employees to existing tax money. And there's no guarantee that the increased spending needed to fulfill the police and fire mandates would come from current money being spent on non-essential city services. Somewhere, somehow, Tucson taxpayers will have to pay the bill and you can bet that will eventually come in the form of higher taxes.

Perhaps this major new expense could be justified if Prop. 200 included a strong mechanism for ensuring it would actually result in improved public safety. But there is no consequence if the funding does not, in fact, result in better service.

Rather than streamline local government and make it more effective, Proposition 200 would simply guarantee a massive expansion of the city payroll without a guaranteed return.

Kevin McCarthy of the Arizona Tax Research Association writes On Prop. 200, resist ballot-box budgeting (excerpt):

Taxpayers in Tucson, courtesy of Proposition 200, are being asked to amend the city Charter to strip the current and future City Councils of their authority to establish budgets for the police and fire departments. The Arizona Tax Research Association strongly urges Tucson taxpayers to reject this effort at ballot-box budgeting.

From local school districts to the state of Arizona, clearly the most important duty of our elected representatives is to establish an annual budget. Once adopted, those budgets reflect months of planning in which elected officials are challenged with managing changing spending priorities against the budget decisions of previous elected officials.

Arizona has become the poster child for the negative policy implications of ballot-box budgeting…

* * *

The inherent flaw with ballot-box budgeting is that citizens vote to mandate a spending obligation without understanding the long-term budget impacts of the proposals. Clearly the proponents prefer it that way.

Sidestepping the city's budgeting process allows the proponents of Proposition 200 to have an isolated budget debate regarding police and fire protection without the unpleasantness of a tax increase to fund it.

Make no mistake; in the end, this process always poorly serves taxpayers who are left questioning why citizens were not properly informed that these services are not free.

* * *

By any measure, Proposition 200 will force increased spending that will either drive future tax increases or impact other city services.

With the economic crisis facing Arizona serving as a painful reminder, Tucson taxpayers can be assured that, if approved, Proposition 200 will certainly force a tax increase at some future date.