By Councilmember Tom Durham
Does Adam Kwasman plan to slash your services from the City of Scottsdale by over 50%?
Well, he says he does. He told AZCentral, “I know there are hundreds of millions of dollars in wasteful spending” in the General Fund.
The General Fund is the primary operating fund of the City. It is used to pay for services traditionally associated with city government, such as police, fire, parks, streets, etc.
But the General Fund operating fund expenditures are $376 million per year. Assuming “hundreds of millions of dollars” are “only” $200 million, that means Kwasman thinks more than half of Scottsdale’s operating expenditures are “wasteful.” Eliminating $200 of so-called “wasteful spending” would bring the General Fund down to $176 Million. Fire and police protection alone require about $209 million per year, so cutting $200 million of “wasteful spending” would defund police and fire to the tune of over $25 million—with nothing left for public works, parks, streets, or other services.
Does Kwasman really intend to cut our budget by over one-half? I don’t know. I have challenged him to reveal his plans, but his reference to $200 million in “wasteful spending” is his first public comment. He has yet to identify a penny of so-called “wasteful spending” and has refused to attend public forums to defend his ideas. And he failed to attend any City Council meetings on the City’s budget. Information on the General Fund can easily be found in minutes on the City’s website, but he has obviously failed to examine the details of the General Fund. As the Arizona Progress & Gazette noted earlier this year, he simply refuses to do his homework.
Along with his other weird ideas of firing all of our charter officers, supporting the Goldwater Institute in trying (but failing) to take away your right to vote, ignoring the citizen-approved General Plan, and claiming that Scottsdale’s tax rates—among the lowest in the Valley—are “fiscally irresponsible,” Adam has shown that he is not prepared to lead Scottsdale.