By Maggie Michel
In Tucson, our governance model exposes a glaring contradiction: We create and fund pseudo-government entities and contractors to handle essential services because we fundamentally distrust the city’s ability to manage them effectively. With a history of inefficiencies, scandals, and bureaucratic hurdles, we’ve outsourced key functions to arm’s-length organizations, nonprofits, and private firms. Yet the city continues to approve fee and privilege tax increases without voter input, often contradicting the economic goals of these very entities—like Visit Tucson’s promise of tourism-driven prosperity. We’re funding a system that circumvents itself, all on visitors’, business owners’, and residents’ dime.
Visit Tucson exemplifies this distrust-driven outsourcing. As a nonprofit pseudo-entity, it promotes tourism through marketing campaigns to attract conventions, events, sports, and film productions. Funded almost entirely by public dollars, it receives about $7.3 million annually from the city’s bed tax on hotel stays. Proponents claim a $24 return for every $1 invested, with recent reports (e.g., FY 2023-24 and 2025 updates) affirming this ROI through economic impacts like $304–$332 million in visitor spending. Skeptics question whether these self-reported metrics prove direct causation or if benefits would occur anyway from natural tourism growth. Regardless, the setup arises from a lack of faith in city hall to handle promotion without external oversight, creating a separate layer that siphons funds while promising outsized returns.
The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) is another quasi-governmental body, overseeing road improvements, transit expansions, bike paths, and safety projects regionwide. Fueled by a half-cent sales tax, it sees Tucson taxpayers contribute significantly—the city channels around $19 million yearly to local transit, including $10 million for services within city limits. Born from skepticism about the city’s solo management of large-scale infrastructure, the RTA acts as a buffer against potential municipal mismanagement.
Connect Tucson, embedded in the city’s Office of Economic Initiatives, functions like a pseudo-program by redirecting resources to external partners. It offers business incentives, grants, and growth support—such as property tax abatements and sales tax reimbursements—costing millions in forgone revenue annually from general funds and sales taxes. This reflects our reluctance to let the city directly control economic development.
Contracted road work further illustrates the outsourcing web, with private firms handling major projects, funded partly by city bonds and taxes. Similarly, Sun Tran, our bus system, is operated by contractor Transdev, serving 18 million riders annually and subsidized by about $70 million from general funds yearly—including support for fare-free rides implemented without voter input. These arrangements ensure operations avoid sole city oversight, which we evidently distrust.
Tucson’s persistent budget shortfall—projected at $10 million for FY 2026 despite recent tax hikes—compounds the issue. Instead of cutting funding for entities not tied to specific increases (like Visit Tucson’s bed tax allocations) or reinstating Sun Tran fares to generate revenue, the city slashes public safety budgets. Police and fire departments face reductions that slow response times and weaken community protection, while pseudo-entities remain unchecked—prioritizing outsourcing over core services and deepening the distrust cycle.
The irony peaks as the city approves fees and tax increases without voter input—hikes like recent utility and hotel surcharges adding $16.6 million, or fare-free transit draining funds sans public say. Advocates for RTA Next argue that without the extension, “democratic socialists” will push a utopian 15-minute city plan—well, don’t vote for it. If you’re worried the city will pursue a utopian proposition if RTA doesn’t pass, consider Proposition 407, which did exactly that despite the 2006 RTA plan: a $225 million voter-approved bond in 2018 for parks improvements and “connections” like pedestrian/bike paths, layering transportation-related spending atop the RTA framework. We’re perpetuating pseudo-governments because we distrust the city, yet enabling its fiscal overreach. It’s time to stop approving tax increases and start voting in city elections. Vote for change in our mayor and council, who are underperforming and failing to deliver accountable, efficient governance.
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