By Steve Thomas | Fountain Hills
What a difference two weeks — or even seventy-two minutes – makes in Vice Mayor Toth’s perspective.
At the Council’s March 25 work session, regarding the Code of Ethics, Toth said “Fiscal Year 2024, we spent $10,554 on the processes of these complaints. That’s money that could have gone to streets. That’s money that could have helped with our staff; we do cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) with each budget. At some point we gotta care about these smaller dollar amounts.”
During the council’s budget work session on April 8, cautious spending was the focus for most of the session. When a COLA for town staff came up, most of the council wanted 2.5%. Toth said “There’s very little wiggle room in the budget that we currently have. Any of this amount cuts into that $1.23 million contingency … We’re just trying to do what we can to be smart about our budget … 2.5% is perfectly reasonable.”
Mayor Friedel suggested 3% to 3.5%. Town Manager Goodwin suggested a compromise of 2.75%. Both completely ignored.
However, when Councilwoman Earle proposed a raise for the council and mayor, Toth’s purse strings opened wide and her spending concerns became only a distant memory.
Earle proposed the monthly council stipend go from $400 to $750 (87.5% increase) and the mayor’s stipend go from $600 to $1,100 (83.3% increase), to the tune of $31,200 per year. That is almost three times the amount Toth was so concerned about only two weeks prior.
Toth supported Earle’s proposal but didn’t mention streets, staff COLAs, belt tightening, reducing the contingency or being smart about the budget. Friedel suggested increasing the stipend by the same percentage as the staff COLA. What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander, right? The council totally ignored Friedel’s idea.
Smells like fiscal hypocrisy to me.
Please send your comments to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.
