All it takes is a 3-2 vote.
Thatβs a common critique by opponents of this yearβs seven Pima County bond ballot issues: If the bonds are passed, all it takes is a 3-2 vote by the Pima County Board of Supervisors to change the projects that we voted for, presumably toward the boardβs priority of the moment.
If it were really that simple, that would be a good reason to vote no on all seven bond issues. As you may recall, I encouraged a mixed yes-and-no vote in my Oct. 15 column. But the situation really is not that simple and demands a deeper analysis.
So letβs start with the critique. Supervisor Ally Miller has been mining a 2013 audit of the countyβs bond program by the state Auditor Generalβs Office for examples of this practice β changing bond projects after theyβve been approved by voters. Examples arenβt hard to find. Appendix D of the audit lists 304 examples that occurred between 1998 and 2012.
It sounds like a big number, but itβs more complicated than that.
Two of the more egregious examples Miller pointed to are the new Pima County courts complex downtown and a park in Oro Valley. The notorious courts project, also pointed to by former Superior Court judge (and current U.S. Attorney) John Leonardo in the Star last week, is a worrying example.
Voters authorized $76 million in bond spending for the courthouse, out of a projected $91 million total cost. Archaeological costs added an unexpected $17 million to the project. Design additions also increased the cost to county taxpayers, and the final twist came when the city of Tucson decided to pull out of the project β a $21 million cost.
Was the outcome a problem? Absolutely it was, and it reflected badly on local leadership, as I wrote in a Feb. 3 column. But the cost overruns arenβt as simple as subtracting $91 million from $143 million. The parking garage, for example, cost about $17 million of that total and is expected to pay for itself. When you add that to the archaeological costs and the cost of losing the city partnership, that explains pretty much the whole problem.
Poor management? Yes. An indictment of the countyβs bond process? Not in my book.
As Miller speaks to groups around the area, she presents another example: Naranja Park in Oro Valley. The 2004 bond proposition, approved by county voters, listed $3 million in spending to establish the park, but the money got shifted to rehabilitating Steam Pump Village.
βI got chewed up one side and down the other,β Miller told me about a meeting involving supporters of the park plan. βVoters voted for it because they were going to get a park near their home.β
The fact that the board voted to shift the money to Steam Pump Village seems an indictment of the process. But catch this: The board did it because the town of Oro Valley asked for the change. On Sept. 29, 2005, the Town Council cited the unexpectedly high cost of land acquisition at the Naranja site in asking the board to shift the money.
That changes the complexion of the matter, doesnβt it?
It turns out, the process for making changes to voter-approved bond projects offers some checks and balances. The countyβs bond code requires that any proposed changes be considered first by the bond advisory committee or, if the project involves buying land for conservation, by the conservation acquisition commission.
Although those committees donβt have formal veto authority over changes, the Board of Supervisors has never overruled the bond advisory committee decisions in Larry Heckerβs 13 years as chair, he told me.
In addition, as was true in past bond elections, any change to a bond project within the limits of a municipality must be approved first by that city or townβs council. Thatβs why the reason Oro Valley had to request the Naranja Park change before the Pima County supervisors approved it. This yearβs seven bond questions include 99 projects, and 58 of those are within cities or towns, meaning most of these projects have that extra layer of protection.
Now, that isnβt a surefire defense, as Marana Mayor Ed Honea is eager to explain. Honea pointed out that two projects Marana wanted from the last bond elections were torpedoed by the Pima County board.
One would have brought $800,000 in improvements to the Honea Heights 3 neighborhood, he said, and the town had come up with an additional $1.3 million in matching grants.
βWe were going to go in there and put in a park, put in some roadways, put in some infrastructure,β Honea said. βHe refused to give us the money.β
βHeβ here is of course Honeaβs nemesis, Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry. But this project wasnβt one of those listed in the ballot that voters approved β it was part of a neighborhood-revitalization program approved by voters that then required a second round of proposals and approvals.
Instead of doing the projects Marana wanted, Honea complained, the county made land purchases in Marana that the town never requested.
Was power politics a factor in these Pima County decisions, which occurred during the legal fight over a wastewater treatment plant in Marana? Iβm sure it was. But any project in Marana that is on this yearβs ballot will require that the Town Council approve of changes before the Pima County board takes action. I think thatβs decent protection.
However many bond propositions pass this year, itβs likely the number of changes to projects will be smaller than in previous years. Thatβs because that 304 number cited in the audit is a little misleading. Yes, those all occurred, but many of them were insignificant tweaks, explained Nicole Fyffe, the county employee in charge of staffing the bond advisory committee and shepherding any possible changes.
Under Pima Countyβs code, any change in cost by 25 percent or more and any change in timing by a year or more must be formally approved by the board. That remains true.
It used to also be true that any outside funding for a bond project that initially was expected to have none required a formal change, even if it was a $200,000 project that got $10,000 in new outside funding, Fyffe said. Now, the new funding must top $100,000 to require a formal change.
Everybody agrees that changes will occur in bond projects, because circumstances change. Take this example: In the 2004 bond issue approved by voters, the city of Tucson asked for $5.5 million in funding for a north-side community center, but the city couldnβt find an affordable site. Instead the council asked the county board to move that money to soccer-field improvements at nearby Rillito Park. Seems a decent outcome to me.
For those 41 projects that are slated to occur in unincorporated county areas, there is no redundancy to the protections from changes because the board has the only formal say. All that it really takes for changes in these projects is a 3-2 board vote, though the advisory committee has significant input.
Overall, the countyβs system for making changes to voter-approved bond projects is good enough, in my view.
I donβt like all the 99 projects, because I see some of them as βwants,β not βneeds,β that benefit politically connected groups and people, and Iβm planning to vote no on some of the bond proposals for that reason. But Iβm not planning to vote no because I fear the County Supervisors will change the listed projects at their whim.
