Pima County sets $45,000 pay floor for workers, adds $1 million for food and health aid

Pima County sets $45,000 pay floor for workers, adds $1 million for food and health aid

TUCSON, Ariz. — The Pima County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 on Tuesday, Oct. 13, to spend surplus money from last fiscal year on employee pay raises, recruitment and other county priorities. The plan raises the county's lowest pay grades to at least $45,000 a year. Supervisors also amended the plan to send $1 million to the Health Department to help residents losing food and health care benefits.

The board adopted County Administrator Jan Lesher's recommendations for additional fiscal 2025-26 fund balance. Her memo proposed $8.97 million for employees:

• $4.62 million over two years to raise the five pay grades with annual minimums below $45,000, effective Jan. 1, 2027. Intermittent employees are excluded.
• $1.35 million for a two-year retention and recruitment incentive pilot.
• $2.7 million to raise shift differentials from 60 cents (evening) and 65 cents (night) to a flat $1.05 an hour, and on-call pay from $1.30 to $2.10 an hour.

The memo also recommended money for the One Pima Safety Initiative and for expanding court operations to accommodate additional judges.

The memo warned that the raises do not cover pay compression, which the county will need to address in the fiscal 2027-28 budget.

Supervisor Andrés Cano said the employee measures together totaled more than $10.5 million. He cited county workers who had described running food pantries for one another. Cano noted that the governor had approved six more Superior Court judges at the board's request, which will require more court operations. He also praised the One Pima money for the Silverlake-Mission Reinvestment Zone and a downtown initiative.

Food and health aid amendment

Chair Jennifer Allen's amendment passed 4-1. It replaces another round of the county's Short-Term Crisis and Emergency Resources grants with $1 million for the Health Department. The department is to return with a plan in three areas:

• food access, which could include local food banks;
• helping residents navigate changed eligibility rules for SNAP and Affordable Care Act coverage;
• health services for newly uninsured residents.

A separate agenda item for a new grant round was removed from the agenda. Allen said the money will come from the roughly $1.8 million left after the administrator's recommendations, leaving about $800,000.

Supervisor Matt Heinz, who participated remotely, urged a far larger shift toward food aid. He said food banks have cut per-person distributions in half, from 14 items per bag to seven. He said the Health Department told him nearly $100 million a year in nutritional support, about $7 million a month, has disappeared. Heinz said he wanted to raise employee pay but invoked "medical triage," arguing the most urgent threat must be addressed first. He suggested $10 million for the Health Department, then $5 million or more, then $2.5 million. None of those figures was adopted.

Cano suggested the county's grant contingency fund, which he said holds $4.4 million, might be a better source.

Supervisor Steve Christy proposed a $250 county contribution to Invest America accounts for county employees' children, funded from surplus each year. Allen described the cost as roughly $2 million. Supervisor Rex Scott seconded for discussion. Allen and Heinz said they opposed it, and the amendment failed 2-3. Christy's motion to split the vote and continue the employee portion found no second.

Administrator finalists advanced

The board voted 5-0 to advance three finalists for county administrator, as discussed in executive session. Allen said the names would be announced in a press release the next morning.

Residents protest data center plan

Seven of the 10 people who spoke during call to the public opposed a proposed data center near Sahuarita called Project Gravel.

The Rev. Randy Mayer, pastor of Good Shepherd United Church of Christ in Sahuarita, described the project as eight buildings totaling 1.6 million square feet on 160 acres. He said county staff had signed a nondisclosure agreement. He also said the project could be approved administratively without a public hearing under decades-old industrial zoning. He asked the board to order an independent investigation and said any employees who concealed information should be fired.

The 120-day moratorium on new data centers that the board approved 3-2 on Sept. 22 covers only projects that had not yet submitted site permits, as Tucson Daily Brief reported. KJZZ reported that the carve-out leaves Project Gravel outside the pause.

Other speakers raised concerns about:

• groundwater use, power demand and property values;
• dark skies;
• continuous low-frequency noise from cooling equipment.

One resident said the site at 2480 W. Twin Buttes Road sits against Asarco's Mission Mine tailings and said the bare mine walls would act as "a sound mirror," reflecting noise toward homes. Another said a second data center of more than 160 acres is proposed nearby. Board members did not respond to the data center comments.

A caller complained that some vote centers had far more Democratic than Republican poll workers. Scott asked Lesher to have Elections Director Constance L. Hargrove report to the board. He said Hargrove had told him that finding Republican workers has been an ongoing challenge. The board later approved election board worker appointments for the Nov. 3 general election 5-0.

Scott also requested an update on long-delayed revisions to the outdoor lighting code. Earlier, a speaker said light pollution in Tucson rose 9.5% last year while population grew 0.7%.

Chamber funding increase rejected

The board rejected 1-4 Christy's proposal to raise allocations to regional chambers of commerce from $25,000 to $100,000 each. The allocations come from Project Blue land sale proceeds. Christy cited the $250,000 the Hispanic Chamber received. Lesher said the roughly $500,000 extra would likely come from general fund contingency.

Allen said the Hispanic Chamber money funds a specific countywide small-grant program for business beautification and safety. She said the Project Blue money was allocated in December and should not be reopened. Cano said the item was not ready and urged Christy to bring proposals "not on the dais." Heinz offered a substitute requiring the money to go mostly to small-business grants. Christy accepted it, but it failed 2-3.

Christy said it was ironic that "the two most vociferous anti project blue opponents on this board" were weighing in on how the proceeds are spent.

Privilege waiver dies; DEA pact delayed

Christy moved to waive attorney-client privilege and release a Sept. 22 County Attorney's Office memo. The memo was co-authored by Chief Civil Deputy County Attorney Sam Brown and Deputy County Attorney Bobby Yu. The motion died without a second.

The board voted 5-0 on Heinz's motion to continue a memorandum of agreement with the Drug Enforcement Administration to Oct. 27. The agreement would bring the county $286,736.25 in revenue over five years. Heinz said he understood the funded employee would report to the U.S. Department of Justice and said he could not support that under the current administration. Lesher said she could not confirm to whom the position reports.

Also discussed:

• Approved 4-1 a no-cost, three-year agreement making United Way of Tucson & Southern Arizona the primary fundraiser for Pima Early Education Program preschool scholarships. Cano said an investment with United Way and Tucson Electric Power to add a classroom would be announced this week.
• Appointed Christopher Pings to the Industrial Development Authority for a term ending Sept. 5, 2030, and David Godlewski for a term ending Sept. 5, 2028, 5-0.
• Adopted 5-0 Resolution 2026-62. It requires an incorporated city or town's governing body to approve any proposed bond project within its boundaries before it goes on the ballot.
• Adopted 5-0 Resolution 2026-61. The county will pass through Tohono O'odham Nation shared-revenue grants to recipients, with a potential total of $2,073,853.33. The resolution was amended to clarify that the listed applicants are the grant recipients.
• Approved $878,000 in budget authority for the Waste Tire Program, funded by higher state-shared revenue, 5-0.
• Continued to Oct. 27, 5-0, the Lee Plaza/Valencia Road rezoning closure and extension hearings.
• Approved 4-1 four consent items Christy pulled. They included ratification of a corrected $3,818,061 Safe Streets and Roads for All grant agreement.
• Scheduled a joint meeting with the Tucson mayor and council for Nov. 19. Scott and Cano said they cannot attend.

Earlier in the day.

At an afternoon study session, Lesher walked the board through the surplus plan it adopted that evening. Staff said the unexpected fund balance first came in about $18.8 million above projections before property tax corrections and lower-than-expected revenue brought it down. Deputy County Administrator Steve Holmes said fully fixing pay compression across the county's grade structure would cost about $20 million. Staff said preliminary figures show next year's budget about $33 million in the red. They said that was not cause for panic, because the comparable figure at this point last year was almost $50 million.

The plan's money for the One Pima Safety Initiative includes $1 million for the Silverlake-Mission Reinvestment Zone, $500,000 for the Downtown Tucson Partnership and about $677,000 over two years to open three county garages downtown to the public on nights and weekends for $5.

Tucson Medical Center officials also reported on the county's $6.3 million in American Rescue Plan Act money toward the hospital's roughly $27 million emergency department renovation. Julia Strange, TMC Health's senior vice president of external affairs and brand, said the department opens Oct. 19 with 40 private adult treatment rooms. Dr. Josh Lee, TMC's interim chief executive, said it also has its own CT scanner.

This report was drafted by Claude Opus 5.5 from a live transcript produced by Deepgram Nova-2, then reviewed and edited by Nicholas De Leon with Claude Opus 5.5, and published at 8:04 PM MST on October 13, 2026. Read more about how this is made.