Arizona's Dumbest Law that You Probably Do Not Understand (You are not alone)

The Arizona Republic ran this story about the homerule exemption being voted on in Phoenix. I have often wondered how many people understand homerule and why the exemptions are necessary. Basically, there is formula for limiting funding in each city. The city can only spend the amount spent in the 1979-1980 fiscal year adjusted by population. Does this sound reasonable?

I am sure it does to many of you at first look... For some cities, maybe it would even work. Overall, it is a bad idea for a variety of reasons. First, this is why we have elections (and presumably term limits). If politicians overspend or overtax they should be removed from office. I am not a big advocate of term limits, but one of the positive aspects of term limits is that it limits politicians from having undue influence on spending decisions (unfortunately, it also allows them to make the same dumb mistakes as predecessors and gives the city manager a lot power).

And to my Republican friends, imagine a business operating on this model. What if Microsoft was forced to operate off of their 1980 revenue adjusted by the number of customers added since then...


So, what is the biggest problem? Arizona is growing really fast. If you only spend based on your current population, how can you prepare for future growth? If you project an area will add 50k new residents in five years, you would have to wait for them to live there before you would have the funding necessary to add roads, sewer systems, traffic lights etc. Or you would have to short change existing infrastructure to build for the future. Either way it is inefficient and short sighted.

The simple fact is that cities need the flexibility to make large expenditures for large projects. If you have a large infrastructure project you may have to spend a lot up front. Spending is not linear like this model. Development happens in more fits and starts than in a clean linear fashion. Does that mean that cities won't make dumb decisions or spend money on the wrong project, probably not, but frankly disagreements on spending are usually more the result of philosophical disagreement than stupidity.


Here is another reason why it is a bad idea. 56 cities have home rule exemption (BTW it is the largest cities and most of the population of Arizona. This spending scheme is opposed by many Republican and Democratic city officials). Officials from both parties oppose it because it limits their ability to take the right actions. They get complaints from constituents about all manner of things and they want to actually do something, but this can severely limit their ability.

Why would we make a law that limits spending and keep that law when everyone circumvents it? If a city cannot circumvent the law they end up grossly underfunded and unable to provide adequate services like, police, fire, sewer, road construction/maintenance, parks etc. Guess who gets blamed the cities politicians... Ironic isn't it.


We are not talking about some pie in the sky theory of government. This is think tank government at its worst. This law determines whether the city can fill that pothole outside your house or add those two lanes to the only major road with access to your neighborhood or pick up trash in the park your kids play in or maintain that green belt that you like to walk on. It determines whether a city can act when they see a problem on the horizon. This where the rubber meets the road so to speak and directly affects all of our lives.

UPDATE: If this is defeated, Phoenix would have to cut 1.1 Billion from the city budget.Here is a link to the suggested cuts by the Arizona Federation of Tax Payers. I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in that city...