County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry has told department heads not to respond to requests for budget information from Supervisor Ray Carroll, who, with fellow Republican Supervisor Ann Day, has presented an alternate budget.
Huckelberry said Carroll's questions would require a lot of research to answer, and it isn't fair to staff members to do that research unless a majority of the Board of Supervisors wants the same information.
"He's asking for a lot of work," Huckelberry said. "The board needs to make that decision, not one member of the board."
Earlier this year, Pima County department heads prepared their ideal budgets and budgets that were 2 percent and 5 percent smaller in anticipation of reduced state-shared revenue.
Huckelberry then recommended a $1.4 billion budget that calls for 2.3 percent cuts in all general-fund-supported departments.
The budget also calls for a 40-cent reduction in the tax rate that would save the owner of a $200,000 house $80 next year.
Additional tax cuts called for in the Republican proposal would save the owner of a $200,000 house an additional $35. The proposal calls for the county to collect no additional tax revenue next year and uses new growth to further reduce taxes on current homeowners.
Huckelberry said the Republican proposal would result in a 9 percent budget decrease because the county would take in $14 million less in local property-tax revenue at the same time state-shared revenues from sales taxes are down.
Department heads told Huckelberry a 9 percent reduction would result in hundreds of layoffs, parks closures and reductions in essential services.
But Carroll said the county administrator is painting an exaggerated picture of his proposal's impact. On Friday, he asked department heads to research the impact if they received the exact same revenue as last year.
"I don't think it's an unreasonable question," Carroll said.
Carroll said the county administrator is preventing him from obtaining relevant information to challenge the budget.
"We're about delivering services," Carroll said. "And we want to know what impact it will have on services if departments have the same amount of revenue next year that they had this year."
Huckelberry said the question may not be unreasonable, but it's also not grounded in reality.
"How do you make up the difference in the state-shared revenue?" Huckelberry asked. "You can't assume you have the same revenue when you don't."
Carroll said he will put his request on Tuesday's agenda and raise the question when the county holds its budget hearings.
