”This week, we filed an initiative that will help fix the pension problem, and I have committed $25,000 toward this effort,” said Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio in a press release this week. DiCiccio hope to place his Responsible Budget initiative on the May 2018 ballot in Phoenix and the November 2018 ballot in Nevada.
DiCiccio’s initiative requires 20,000 valid signatures to reach the ballot and does the following:
- Every dollar above inflation plus population growth MUST go toward paying down the pensions. Public safety (Police and Fire) are the first to be paid down.
- Requires politicians to pay for their own pensions – NOT the public.
- Exempts Police and Fire so we can continue to hire the first responders we need, and protects them from any cuts to pay and benefits.
DiCiccio says the initiative “requires an honest accounting of the problem, because – believe it or not – no one here at City Hall even knows how big our pension deficit is.”
According to DiCiccio, “Phoenix politicians have refused to fix the growing pension problem and have only made it much worse. Last year, in order to solve a small budget shortfall, they voted to INCREASE the police and fire debt by BILLIONS of dollars by extending the years of repayment. That was their solution, to destabilize an already dire pension for our police and fire and to increase the amount of monies you – the public – will need to pay.”
DiCiccio argues that another “solution the politicians and bureaucrats is proposing” is to raise taxes.