Exactly as Pima County Supervisor Ally Miller predicted, her fellow supervisors are continuing to delay a vote on their use of public monies for their favorite charities.
The Board was supposed to vote on the new Discretionary Spending policy at the December 16th meeting. Previously, the vote on this was to be taken on December 9th but it was postponed until December 16. Now, the item is on the January 13, 2015 meeting.
While Supervisors Carroll, Bronson, Elias and Valadez continue to allow the option of using taxpayer monies from their budgets to be donated to their favorite charities, Supervisor Ally Miller has repeatedly urged the Board to stop the practice altogether. The Goldwater Institute has stated that the current practice is a violation of the Arizona Constitution’s gift clause. She has repeatedly stated that she firmly believes that monies spent without a contract for public violates not only the law but weakens the public’s trust in the County.
Some of the recipients of the monies in the past turned around and made donations to some supervisors’ campaigns.