The state could be telling Phoenix how to run the city under proposed legislation City Councilman Sal DiCiccio drafted with Arizona legislators.

The bills, which aim to dictate how much Phoenix pays employees and how it provides city services, are designed to protect taxpayers and enact government reform, DiCiccio said. But DiCiccio's fellow council members say the legislation would harm the city and they question DiCiccio's motivation.

Today, the Senate Government Reform Committee is expected to hear Senate Bills 1322, 1345 and 1347, sponsored by Sen. Frank Antenori, R-Tucson. SB 1322 would require Phoenix and other cities with populations greater than 200,000 to seek private-sector bids for services that cost more than $50,000. SB 1345 and 1347 would limit how many city employees Phoenix and Tucson could hire and how much the cities could pay in employee wages and benefits.

DiCiccio, of Ahwatukee, backed by conservative think tank the Goldwater Institute, said he has been working with state legislators on the bills for more than four months to change how Phoenix operates.

DiCiccio is fighting against his own city, whose eight other elected officials told Phoenix lobbyists to oppose the bills. The councilman, who represents areas of east Phoenix that include Arcadia, the Biltmore and Ahwatukee Foothills, said he didn't take the proposals to the city because "government is structured to protect itself."

"Change is not going to occur here," DiCiccio said. "It's going to happen from the outside."

Requiring Phoenix to bid out more services would force the city to provide services more efficiently as it competes with private business to do the job, DiCiccio and Antenori said.

"It will create opportunities for small-business owners that were once shut out of contracts to compete for those services," DiCiccio said. "It will open a floodgate of new ideas and innovation on how to make service delivery more cost-efficient."

The proposal excludes firefighters, police officers, judges and 911 operators, but would touch everything from running the city's water department to printing services.

Phoenix Government Relations Director Karen Peters said $50,000 is such a low threshold for bidding out services that the process would cost the city more money than it would save. The bid process takes months as the city advertises the work, reviews proposals and conducts interviews before awarding contracts.

Phoenix currently privatizes more than $430 million in services such as public transit and the operation of the Lake Pleasant Water Treatment Plant. The city also is in the middle of studying more ways to outsource, said Peters, who added that it should be for the City Council, not state legislators, to decide how Phoenix is run.

"This is an enormous broad brush that sweeps everything into this bidding process," Peters said. "Sometimes the private sector can do something quicker, faster and better, but when it is not appropriate it would cost the taxpayers money."

The bill was introduced to impose the bidding requirements only on Phoenix and Tucson but was amended Monday to include cities with populations of more than 200,000, which would impact Mesa, Glendale, Chandler, Scottsdale and Gilbert as well. DiCiccio also is pushing the compensation bills because cutting costs on what he said are overpaid employees would reduce the city's budget. In 2010-11, total employee costs made up about 59 percent of the city's $2.4 billion operating budget.

Vice Mayor Thelda Williams said limiting what Phoenix offers in pay and benefits would result in less-qualified employees for Phoenix.

"Why would someone who is well-qualified and has an expertise come for low salary and low benefits?" Williams said. "We're the fifth-largest city in the nation for goodness' sakes. We need the best."

Antenori said government has created a "default monopoly" on certain jobs, and these bills will help small businesses and protect the public.

"Government's role is to be fiscally responsible to the taxpayer," Antenori said. "If we can find a way to do it cheaper, then we're going to do it."At a news conference introducing one of the bills he drafted, DiCiccio was asked if he was running for another office.

"I'm not," DiCiccio said.

But Williams said his actions seem self-motivated, though she isn't sure what the endgame is.

"I have no idea why this man wants to destroy city government," said Williams, who notes that Phoenix has won several national awards and recognition for being a well-run city. "It will have long-term detrimental consequences."