Political notebook: Mayoral politics loom over vote on city manager’s raise

"We had an executive session where we had the opportunity to voice concern," she said. "The salary was talked about. And we came out and voted unanimously for what was discussed for the compensation."

"We had more than a week of this issue being part of the agenda. There was no communication from anyone to try to delay this item to try to get a different contract in front of us.”

Behind the surprise there lurked a looming political challenge and other possible divides. One of those who voted no was Paul Cunningham, the longtime Ward 2 council member who is considering challenging Romero for mayor in next year’s Democratic primary. He has until Nov. 1 to decide.

The other person who objected was Miranda Schubert, the new Ward 6 council member who has shown a tendency to veer from the council’s progressive majority on some issues, such as the Regional Transportation Authority election in March and the recent conveyance of city land to Raytheon Missile Systems.

For both of them, a raise of 16%, nearly the median household income in Tucson, was too much to swallow. The raise to $375,000 was $60,000 more than Thomure made when hired, at $315,000 per year, in 2024, but he has had bumps to $324,500 since then.

Citing the $60,000 number, Schubert said, “The amount of his raise is more than I’d ever made before I got this position.”

Tucson City Council members make about $96,000 per year.

Schubert, who took office in December, said she was also confused about the process.

“I thought we were maybe going to have another session to talk about it more,” she said. “The next thing I know it (the contract) was on the agenda.”

Cunningham noted that he was sick with COVID-19 when the executive session took place to discuss Thomure’s performance and raise.

“The average household income is $60,000,” Cunningham said. “Giving one guy a raise that large doesn’t look good. We could have phased this in.”

In an interview Thursday, Romero noted that Thomure recently led a review of all the salaries of city workers, and $18 million is being put toward bringing them to market rate, which means some city employees got big raises.

“He was the last employee who received a market analysis, and based on comparables to Arizona cities and towns, we decided on the lowest range,’ in terms of how other city managers are paid in Arizona,” she said.

The Chandler city manager’s pay was slightly lower, at $370,000 per year, she said, but in a review of Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, Gilbert and Chandler, the average city manager salary was $402,000.

Of course, the cost of living in those cities is 10%-12% higher than in Tucson, according to online calculators.

Council outliers on franchise agreement

Five members of the Tucson City Council are in favor of Prop. 421, the proposal to extend Tucson Electric Power’s franchise agreement with Tucson for 25 years.

Two of them, though, are not. And they’re the same outliers who voted no on City Manager Tim Thomure’s contract.

Miranda Schubert said Thursday she is voting no on the franchise agreement, which would grant the electric utility the right to build and maintain power lines in Tucson’s public rights-of-way.

She said the 25-year time frame is unnecessarily long, and the $2 million per year TEP will put toward climate resiliency is insufficient. Her position isn’t because the franchise agreement would foreclose a public-power option over the long run, she said.

“I don’t think the franchise agreement passing would stop us from pursuing that option.”

Paul Cunningham is not a “no” vote on the proposition, but he’s not a “yes” either, he said.

“I’m still evaluating all of the repercussions for in-city and out-of-city ratepayers,” he said.

Big spending in TEP campaign

The state’s deadlines for campaign-finance reports make it impossible to know how much the pro-franchise agreement political action committee, called TEP for Tucson, has raised or spent before voters get their ballots.

The last deadline for filing a disclosure form was July 15. The next one is Oct. 15.

But opponents of Prop. 421 have managed to get a sense of the scale of TEP for Tucson’s spending, and it’s pretty vast. As of Sept. 28, TEP for Tucson had scheduled more than 1,700 ad spots on Tucson’s four local, commercial TV stations.

The cost: $1.47 million.

But that’s not all TEP for Tucson has spent. It also paid for 59 pro-Prop. 421 arguments to be placed in the election information pamphlet, at a total cost topping $14,000. And there have been mailers sent out as well as internet ads that haven’t been accounted for yet, said Public Power for Tucson organizer Lee Ziesche.

Tucson Electric Power is the main, if not the only, funder of TEP for Tucson. Utility spokesman Joe Salkowski said the details of fundraising and spending will be in the filing due Oct. 15.

He said TEP’s spending on the campaign comes out of corporate funds and is not recovered from customers through rates. In other words, it comes from the company’s profits. Their aim, he said, is to make clear that the franchise agreement maintains the status quo access the utility requires to build and maintain power lines and facilities in Tucson rights-of-way.