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Jorgensen Brooks Group Counselor Sales and Marketing Everready Glass Sales Reps Mechanical Komatsu Equipment Co Resident Field Mechanic Trades/Construction RANCHO RESORT MAINTANANCE POSITION Finance and Accounting Charles E. Gillman Company Accounting Specialist Administrative & Professional Tucson Urban League CEO/President Tucson RegionBallpark spending going up $900,000Work on county stadium called 10-year maintenance
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 05.20.2008
The anticipated departure of the Chicago White Sox and the Tucson Sidewinders from the friendly confines of Tucson Electric Park doesn't mean Pima County will spend less to run the stadium.
In fact, the Stadium District is likely to spend $900,000 more next year than it did this year.
It's not that running spring training for one team costs more than running it for two, said County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry.
Instead, like people who find themselves back on the dating scene after years of marriage, Pima County is sprucing up the stadium to look its best during the search for another team willing to share quarters with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Pima County officials have insisted the White Sox find a Major League Baseball replacement team before leaving for a newer, more attractive stadium in Glendale — though so far none has appeared.
Instead the White Sox have offered to develop a year-round youth baseball tournament, an alternative Huckelberry said probably won't be acceptable.
The Sidewinders are moving next season to a new stadium being built in Reno, Nev., just for them.
But Pima County says it's having the work done for itself, not to impress others.
"It's just the kind of maintenance you have to do after 10 years," Huckelberry said.
But the stadium makeover will be more akin to getting a gym membership and dye job than going all out with a face-lift and tummy tuck.
In addition to other expenditures, Pima County plans to spend $325,000 to paint the outside of the stadium, $250,000 to repair the roof and $6,500 on fence, concrete and elevator repairs.
In budgeting for next year, Pima County also assumed it would take in roughly $500,000 from White Sox spring training, just as it did this year.
That's not an alimony payment. Rather, Pima County continues to hope for a reconciliation with the wayward White Sox.
"We're not releasing them from their contract," Huckelberry said. "They have a commitment with us."
The extra spending means the Stadium District will spend slightly more than it takes in. The difference will come from savings the district built up over the last two years.
The Pima County Board of Supervisors will hold hearings on the Stadium District budget and all the other county department budgets today.
The supervisors must set the budget ceiling now, but time remains to reallocate funds within the county budget or even reduce the budget, as Republican Supervisors Ray Carroll and Ann Day hope to do.
Huckelberry said the county has some wiggle room after the budget ceiling is set, because Pima Health System did not receive an AHCCCS contract from the state.
The recommended budget going to the board includes $7 million in growth to Pima Health System that now won't occur.
That $7 million could be spent in other departments without going over the budget ceiling.
But any increase in the proposed property tax rate would require a Truth in Taxation hearing, something the county has tried to avoid in recent years.
Carroll said he plans to offer an alternative budget today that would further reduce the tax rate.
Board of Supervisors Chairman Richard Elías said he is mostly satisfied with the county budget, but he would like to see some pay raises for lower-paid county workers.
The recommended budget calls for no pay raises or cuts.
"Our workers are facing the same increases in the cost of a gallon of milk and everything else as taxpayers are," Elías said.
● Contact reporter Erica Meltzer at 807-7790 or emeltzer@azstarnet.com.
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