January 04, 2010

Expect the city of Tucson's financial problems to bring a large anxious crowd to the council meeting Tuesday

The issue is how to close a 32 million dollar hole in the city budget.

Renters are worried about a possible two percent tax on rent. Police and firefighters are worried about layoffs.

You have renters saying don't balance the budget on our backs. And police saying the city's running out of ways to avoid layoffs.

The issue's so hot, council's moving the 5:30 meeting to the Tucson Convention Center so there's room for over flow crowds.

The association for apartment complexes asked some renters to make protest signs to catch council's attention.

Tenants say with money tight anything that raises their rent could be hard to handle.

Kristfer Kiracofe/TENANT:"I'm a student so if there was an increase in my tax and my rent would go up a lot and I'd have to refinance all my loans, my student loans and all that kind of stuff."

The two percent tax would cost an extra ten dollars a month if you pay 500 for rent now----so 120 dollars a year.

This will be the third time city staff has proposed the rent tax. Past attempts brought plenty of opposition and council members voted no.

The city manager say the city needs to rely less on sales tax. He says sales tax income is too prone to fall off suddenly when the economy tanks and people spend less.

The manager's proposing a short term renters tax for a few years until voters approve a property tax dedicated to police and fire...he says otherwise the city might have to lay off police and firefighters.

Tucson's Fraternal Order of Police is endorsing the plan as the best way to avoid losing police on the street says even though officers would sacrifice some pay to help balance the budget.

Sgt. Brandon Musgrave/TUCSON FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE:

"The current plan that's laid out by the city manager would be a cut that officers would see in their paycheck of several thousand dollars."

People often say there must be places to cut before resorting to taxes. The city pays a lot of money to outside agencies that do things like care for the homeless, offer job training, or promote the area for business or tourism.

The city manager's plan calls for cutting those agencies 20 percent now and another 30 percent this summer.