Deer Valley, AZ – Last week, it was announced that the city of Phoenix will be forced to stop funding Phoenix Law Enforcement Association’s (PLEA) union activities, Today, the City’s administration has decided to apply the ruling to all City of Phoenix unions.” View the court decision here. View the City Manager’s memo here.

“This is big news for the taxpayers of Phoenix. Instead of using taxpayers’ money to fund union activities, we can use this money on vital City services. This money should be used to end domestic violence, end human trafficking, and put more police on the street,” said Councilman Sal DiCiccio.

The following quote is from page 8 of the court ruling released on January 29: “This evidence supports the conclusion that the City Council abused their discretion in approving the release time at issue.”   This was approved on a 5-4 vote with Mayor Stanton being the swing vote.

It is disappointing that the Mayor and Council were complicit in funding union activities which in turn supported their candidates and then, once those candidates were elected, continued to give millions of taxpayer dollars back to the unions.  It was a vicious circle which has caused the large budget deficit we have seen this year.

Mayor Stanton was the swing vote to use taxpayer monies to fund union activity, the swing vote to keep pension spiking and presented a budget supporting the food tax (which was immediately proven to be false).

“It’s time for the Mayor and those council members to protect taxpayers and not the government unions,” said DiCiccio