Tempe hasn’t earned public’s trust for Prop. 424

The structure hides where the money actually goes. Proponents highlight popular investments in transit and preschools, but those are secondary line items. A full 60% of this permanent tax hike — $30 million every single year — is funneled straight into public safety.”

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What are your thoughts on Tempe Proposition 424, a half-cent sales-tax increase that goes to voters Nov. 3? Tell us in 300 words or less at yourvalley.net/letters, or email your comments, name, address and contact number to AzOpinions@iniusa.org.

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OPINION — Sound public policy is defined by how revenue is raised, who bears the burden and whether spending comes with real accountability.

Tempe’s Proposition 424 fails on all three counts.

The City Council wants voters to approve a permanent 0.5% sales-tax increase — a massive 28% jump in our tax rate. It is the city’s largest tax hike in 30 years, extracting $50.5 million annually forever. Proponents argue that visitors will pay a share, but sales taxes are inherently regressive. They hit local working-class and middle-class families hardest on daily purchases, the very households already struggling under soaring rents.

Worse, the structure hides where the money actually goes. Proponents highlight popular investments in transit and preschools, but those are secondary line items. A full 60% of this permanent tax hike — $30 million every single year — is funneled straight into public safety.

Despite locking in tens of millions in new permanent funding, Prop. 424 includes zero independent citizen oversight. There is no dedicated oversight committee, no sunset clause and no requirement that the council spend these funds as promised. Voters are being asked to hand City Hall an unmonitored blank check.

When councilmembers voted to bundle three distinct priorities into one take-it-or-leave-it proposal, they stripped voters of nuance. Council members rushed the vote right before newly elected members were seated, with minimum public input. A resident should be able to support early childhood care without automatically approving a massive, permanent police expansion.

Crucially, the proposal ignores Tempe’s true crisis: housing affordability. Ask residents their top concern, and affordable housing tops the list. Yet in a $50.5 million tax package, not a single dollar goes toward affordable housing, rent relief or anti-displacement initiatives.

When the state Legislature eliminated the residential rental tax, Tempe lost $25.7 million in recurring revenue. But asking working families to fill a state-created gap through a regressive tax raising $50.5 million — nearly double what was lost — is fundamentally unfair.

While claiming a fiscal crisis, city management continued expanding administrative positions and executive compensation, including a major raise for the city manager. Meanwhile, official claims of fiscal restraint are misleading: Deferring projects merely postpones costs, and a 10% department directive was just a temporary, one-year spending reduction, not a permanent budget cut.

City leadership’s narrative breaks down on its own timeline. At a February 2026 work session, leadership presented a financial forecast showing a sound long-term outlook. Just two months later, they cited that exact same forecast to declare a fiscal crisis. Did management plan this sales-tax hike all along while assuring council and the public everything was fine?

Questioning City Hall’s math isn’t anti-Tempe. It’s responsible civic oversight. If the city wants our support for separate policy decisions, it should give us separate choices, clear oversight and a tax structure that reflects our city's true priorities.

Demand a fair proposal that puts community priorities and real accountability first: Vote no on Proposition 424.

Sens. Mitzi Epstein, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, and Lauren Kuby, Senate Appropriations Committee member, represent Tempe in the Arizona Legislature and serve as co-chairs of the Tempe Coalition for Tax Fairness, a group opposing Tempe Prop. 424. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.