A Maricopa County Superior Court has ruled that spending taxpayer money for union activity must stop.
Judge Katherine Cooper issued a preliminary injunction June 5 halting Phoenix’s practice of paying union leaders to do union work, rather than their city jobs, on the taxpayers’ clock.
The ruling is the result of a suit by the Goldwater Institute against Phoenix and the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, or PLEA. Phoenix gives the police union about $1 million a year in release time payments with no description or auditing of what Phoenix gets in return, according the Councilman Sal DiCiccio.
All told, Phoenix gives multiple city unions about $3.7 million in release time. The suit only included the police union, DiCiccio added.
