Tax Increase Coming: PHX Politicians set to raise property taxes for pay raises and bonuses

By Sal DiCiccio
Phoenix City Council
District 6
Here is the real story behind the latest move to raise your property tax:
Phoenix politicians secretly knew they were going to raise your property tax. For the past several years they have been purposely draining the fund that pays for capital projects and used those monies for merit and longevity raises. Merit increases are pay raises and longevity increases are bonuses.
Politicians use fancy words to confuse the public that they are supposed to serve.
There were two big lies you’ve repeatedly been told. One, that employees took pay cuts. This is not true. Every year since the Great Recession they were given pay raises and bonuses. What they did was cut the increase in pay. Most government staff continued to receive higher compensation.
As a matter of fact, the current total compensation per employee, for over 13,000 employees is now: $110,000 per employee for 2016.
The second lie you will soon be told is that if we don’t raise your property tax we will be facing a crisis. Phoenix politicians created this crisis. They created it by purposely draining that account in order to pay off the government unions. They could have easily said no to the unions’ demands for continuous pay raises and bonuses…. but did not.
Instead, they basically took the mortgage money to give themselves raises all while you and your family took major pay cuts.
This is the real story behind this new move to raise your property tax.
It’s understandable for police to want pay raises. I support that.