Two weeks ago it was reported in this space that the City Manager Mike Ortega’s 2023-24 budget included $1.5 million from the general fund. That’s a snarky paltry sum and just a small part of the story, it turns out.

Ortega’s budget wasn’t particularly easy to follow. That is the amount in the city’s general fund for climate. Not all the measures that would do something about climate were marked as “climate spending.” Plus there’s federal grant money for climate and a snarky-small amount from the state because it’s Arizona.