DiCiccio blasts Stanton over pension spiking issue

PHOENIX — Members of the Phoenix City Council are continuing their war of words over pension spiking by city employees.

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton said if the council approves recommendations made by a city subcommittee, it will put an end to the practice.

“It eliminates the pension-ability of phone and car allowance,” Stanton said. “It eliminates future accrual of sick leave.”

But one city council member doesn’t believe it. Sal DiCiccio said those recommendations will let city employees continue to include things like unused sick leave to boost their pensions until July of next year, and will cost the city millions of dollars. He said he thinks the spiking will continue.

“The recommendations that came out of the subcommittee were very, very weak,” said DiCiccio. “They did very, very little.”

During an appearance on KTAR’s “Arizona’s Morning News Weekend” show, DiCiccio accused Stanton of backing down on a campaign promise he made in 2011 that he would eliminate pension spiking.

“As a matter of fact, the Arizona Republic said in an editorial that the mayor had no intentions of fulfilling his promise to eliminate pension spiking,” DiCiccio said.

The councilman said there’s a reason that the Stanton is going back on his word.

“The problem that he has is that the unions that backed him in his election are telling him that they don’t want to do this [get rid of pension spiking],” DiCiccio said. “That’s what this is all about. It’s nothing more that the union’s control of city hall and the mayor’s backing of the union’s proposals against the wishes and the needs of the taxpayers.”

DiCiccio said he’s not sure whether the city council will approve the recommendations.