In the second of two forums focusing on Tempe’s budget, the 30 or so residents in attendance at the council chambers Tuesday evening questioned officials more about public employee salaries and benefits than what city officials had presented.
The presentation by Tempe’s city manager and finance director focused on proposed changes to the Capital Improvement Program and property taxes, core parts of the city’s asset management system.
Unlike the city’s general fund that covers day-to-day operating expenses including public employee salaries and benefits, the CIP fund finances the maintenance of Tempe’s roads, buildings and equipment like HVAC units and laptops.
Residents, in an aggressive though respectful tone, steered the conversation to public employee retirement plans and wage comparisons with other Valley municipalities as well as the private sector.
Tempe resident Bill Baxter said city officials haven’t had to make the same kind of cuts to the workforce and public employee pay and benefits that employers like his have had to make.
“I don’t think it’s fair ... to compare [Tempe] only against other municipalities,” Baxter said.
Fire and police are two areas that are probably best compared against other municipalities since fall solely into the public sector, Baxter said. However, many other public jobs like sanitation have a counterpart in the private sector where a comparison should be made.
“[City governments] benchmark themselves only against other municipalities. What they fail to realize ... is that the pay scales are vastly different between the municipalities and the private sector,” Baxter said.
Tempe City Manager Charlie Meyer did not disagree with the idea of making such comparisons.
“We compare ourselves to Valley cities; sometimes we compare ourselves to national averages,” Meyer said.
Meyer added we also compare ourselves to a group of a dozen or so “university cities” like Austin, Texas, Boulder, Colo., and Ann Arbor, Mich.
“Tempe is a place where there’s a lot going on,” Meyer said. “There’s a lot of jobs here, a lot of transportation here and it a very, very full service community.”
A comparison to other university cities was done last year, he said. It was found that Tempe was providing a “good deal” to it community members.
“We may not be the lowest but we’re in the low end of that category,” Meyer said.
He added that ASU students as well as the rest of the community wouldn’t see any real changes in service and that basic services such as public safety will be maintained.
“What you won’t see also is a lot of new things at least in terms of capital projects,” Meyer said.
Finance and Technology Director Ken Jones said that in the first forum budget meeting held April 12, a resident brought up the idea of discontinuing the city’s Orbit bus service, a free service that provides students and residents a way around the Tempe campus and nearby residential neighborhoods.
Jones added, “It’s something that’s always brought up.”
Contact the report at cbleone@asu.edu
