Arizona State Representative Warren Petersen is working closely with Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio to develop legislation that would prevent lavish payments to public employees, who have been forced out of their positions due to criminal allegations, as in the case of Valley Metro’s Steve Banta.
After exposure by the media of his extravagant spending of taxpayer dollars, including multiple trips to Oregon with his wife, and a $19,000 trip for Glendale city officials to visit Portland’s light-rail system, which included a $4,695 dinner, Banta resigned effective January 4. His contract provides an annuity worth $235,000 which he will take with him when he leaves.
Phoenix Councilmembers DiCiccio, Jim Waring, and Michael Nowakowski, called for an investigation by Attorney General Mark Brnovich into Banta’s dealings. “If the common person on the street got caught stealing a television they aren’t given $235,000 to just walk away. It’s not fair to taxpayers that their hard working monies are given to a person accused of stealing, cheating and fraud to be allowed to just resign. Somethings are worth going to court for, and this is one of them,” said DiCiccio.
“Termination from a high position in government should not be like winning the lotto. Rewarding someone for bad behavior can only encourage more of the same. This is unacceptable and the current way of doing things has to change,” stated Peterson. “It is for this reason that I will be working with Councilmember DiCiccio and introduce legislation to prevent this from happening in the future. What I will be proposing is that any public employee who is caught misappropriating tax dollars shall be ineligible for any severance pay, annuity, pension or other benefit. Furthermore to add a layer of oversight and accountability I will make sure that any taxpayer will have standing in such an event. The problem with the oversight of a 30 member board is this. When 30 people are responsible for something, nobody is responsible. All too often a watchdog citizen or journalist will do a much better job than a 30 member board. We believe this will be a strong deterrent for malfeasance and a merited penalty for those who violate the law.”
“We only hear about the people who are caught. There is no doubt that there are many who go unpunished. If there is no punishment we are just going to have faith that people will do the right thing for the sake of doing what’s right. And there are plenty of people who are doing the right thing. This legislation is not for them – nor anything they need to worry.” Peterson concluded, “However those who are engaged in illicit behavior will soon have something to cause them to think twice before they squander taxpayer funds.”