The Pima County Board of Supervisors delayed its vote on a six-figure, no-bid contract to failed state senate candidate Rocque Perez.
The salary would award Perez — formerly a short-lived appointee to the Tucson City Council and controversy-ridden senate candidate — with a no-bid renewal based on limited oversight to run Southern Arizona Education Council (SAEC), the nonprofit over which he presides as president and CEO.
The county and city of Tucson contract with SAEC for K-12 recommendations, programs, and initiatives centered around “educational equity, post-secondary access, and youth civic engagement.”
Pima County supervisors were initially scheduled to vote on the contract during Tuesday’s meeting. Three Sonorans first reported on the contract renewal and its public scrutiny at length prior to the meeting.
Perez currently makes over $91,700 a year; his salary aligns with 95% of what county supervisors make. Perez’s current employment agreement was established in late January of this year, with back pay retroactive to Dec. 2, 2025, approximately one week before Perez launched his state senate campaign in an Arizona Daily Star op-ed and on social media.
Residents are questioning why Perez’s compensation is commensurate with elected officials’ salaries, and not education credentials, measurable outcomes, or demonstrated program performance.
Yet, Pima County supervisors now propose to pay Perez $122,000 for SAEC — despite reports and evidence of contractual failures, unfulfilled obligations, performance decline, and opaque operations.
Written and in-person public comment for Tuesday’s meeting also scrutinized Perez’s failure to fulfill the scope of services required of SAEC.
The county admitted in a memo that, under Perez, SAEC has failed to carry out its obligated activities and presented significant reporting discrepancies.
SAEC didn’t host the 2025-26 Teen Town Hall Forum, and has 12 members, not 24 as required.
SAEC claimed its partnership with Americorps and Arizona Serve was still intact, but the county discovered that the partnership had ended and was unable to obtain further details as to why.
From its establishment in 1990 until last October, SAEC was known as the Metropolitan Education Commission and focused on programmatic services provided to Pima County and the city of Tucson. Last year, Perez and Pima County Board Supervisor Rex Scott successfully petitioned to rename the nonprofit and expand its organizational mission to unifying regional education strategy by servicing Santa Cruz County.
However, it appears Santa Cruz County either didn’t get the memo or subsequently changed its mind on joining Perez’s SAEC. Nine months after the supervisors approved Perez’s expansion of the nonprofit into a broad regional entity, Perez requested Santa Cruz County be dropped from SAEC’s formal governance and membership structure.
According to the county memo, Perez’s current employment agreement continues to reference his serving a liaison role to Santa Cruz County — a role he doesn’t and by all available reports never had.
Despite these flaws, the county has recommended renewing Perez’s contract on the stipulation that transparency and performance improve down the line. The county recommended monthly, quarterly, and annual reports and deliverables on SAEC agendas and minutes, and the restriction of payments to a monthly basis pending the county’s receipt and approval of those future reports and deliverables.
Perez was also accused of requesting his position to be reclassified within the nonprofit’s founding resolution so that it would no longer be subject to public scrutiny. SAEC adopted a resolution during its July 14 meeting to request the supervisors and Tucson City Council to remove Perez’s voting obligations. A county vote on that reclassification request is scheduled for the supervisor’s meeting on Sept. 8, 2026.
State Sen. Sally Gonzales (LD20) wrote a letter in which she urged the board against renewing Perez’s salary and the SAEC contract for those reasons. Observing the timing overlap between Perez’s SAEC back pay and his campaign launch, Gonzales questioned whether his was an easy gig landed through political connections to further political aspirations.
“Do more research and before you give him $122,000, show taxpayers exactly what they are buying. Show us the outcomes. Show us the work. Show us the accountability,” said Gonzales. “Fund results — not personal relationships, or political connections.”
Gonzales and Pima County Small Business Commission member Kent Blumenthal also mentioned that Perez’s two most recent predecessors reported much greater revenue, yet had salaries that were anywhere from $85,000 to $51,000 less than what they’re proposing to pay Perez. Under one of the predecessors, SAEC reported $600,000 in revenue. Under Perez, reported revenue was about $281,000 for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
The supervisors are scheduled to vote on Perez’s salary at their August 25 meeting. The contract, if approved, would have a retroactive commencement date of July 1, 2026, and terminate on June 30, 2027.
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