City slashes budget by nearly $1 million

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The Maricopa City Council unanimously approved $935,528 in cuts at Tuesday night’s meeting to help deal with a growing budget deficit.

“It is always difficult to cut budgets,” said Councilmember Marvin Brown. “We need to be realistic.”

This fiscal year’s budget was planned with the assumption that builders would purchase 36 permits per month for the construction of single-family homes. However, during the first quarter, the city issued an average of only 11 permits a month. Since the end of the first quarter on Sept. 30, the monthly average has fallen further, to eight permits per month.

The construction of homes brings money to the city in the form of permit fees and sales tax on newly built houses sold in the city.

City Finance Director Cynthia Sneed projected the market slowdown would result in an additional shortfall of about $888,000, on top of $2.6 million in deficit spending already written into this year’s budget.

To deal with the unexpected additional deficit, Sneed met with the directors of city departments and composed a list of 60-plus budget reductions totaling more than $1 million. Council agreed with the vast majority of these recommendations last night, voting to cut two vacant police officer positions, three vacant positions in the planning department along with funding to open school district fields for public use.

Council also put a salary freeze in place for city employees.

Originally council looked at keeping one of the officer positions in the budget, but police Chief Kirk Fitch said his department could provide adequate service with existing personnel.

Items that were suggested for cuts that council decided to keep in the budget were the 2011 Salsa Festival, the 2011 Fishing Derby, Movies in the Park, a scholarship match program, one position in the purchasing department, training for fire personnel and the hiring of an investment management firm.

In addition to trimming of the budget, council voted to enter into an intergovernmental agreement with Casa Grande and Pinal County to complete a design concept report on an east-west road connecting Maricopa, Casa Grande and Coolidge, and approved the rezoning of land for a future Central Arizona College Campus.

Council also voted to spend a maximum of $300,000 to study and make improvements at the intersection of Honeycutt Road and John Wayne Parkway. Before work begins, staff will present the approximate cost and design details of planned improvements for council approval.

Look for more on these stories in the next few days.