City works to find cuts in budget

Despite a nearly 10 percent combined cut to the police and fire department budgets, the city of Maricopa is still looking at a budget shortfall of $2.6 million the coming fiscal year.

The city’s general operation budget for fiscal 2010-2011, which begins July 1, is $27 million after one-time purchases and funds are applied. Revenue projections, which assume 36 single family permits a month and a 2 percent increase in the property tax levy, are only $24.4 million.

“If we don’t get something in here to pay taxes besides new home construction, we will be in trouble,” said City Manager Kevin Evans. “We are in survival mode right now and we can only last this way another two to five years if growth does not return.”

Several of council members asked questions about the property tax issue, a move that would raise the property tax rate to slightly above 4 percent and generate an additional $200,000 in revenue for the city, but no one took a hard stance against the issue during the meeting.

To fill the budget deficit, council agreed on pulling the shortfall from the city’s rainy day fund, which currently contains about $31 million.

“This year we would like to take the money out of the rainy day fund to balance the budget and by next year, the census funding should kick in,” said Cynthia Sneed, the city’s finance director.

Currently, the city receives federal funding for about 15,000 people, when most believe the actual population is more than 35,000. The difference is millions in funding a year, Sneed said. However, city staff was not reliant on rainy day funding when designing the budget for the coming fiscal year.

According to Nicole Dailey, assistant to the city manager, department heads were told several months ago to try to cut 5 percent from their budgets and prioritize the task their departments performs.

She said those two factors in combination with the city’s strategic plan were then used to develop possible budget reductions.

Councilman Carl Diedrich did not agree with this approach. “If you tell someone they have to cut 5 percent versus telling them to try their best to cut 5 percent, you get different results,” Diedrich said. “I would be more aggressive when asking for cuts.

Evan said many of the departments do not have enough fat to issue a five percent across the board cut. “It is about making intelligent cuts,” he said. 

The largest cuts brought forth were by the police and fire departments, which combined reduced their budgets by nearly 10 percent.

Some of the cuts made were a 50-plus percentage reduction in training, eliminating two non-filled officer positions and choosing to wait on vehicle repairs.

“A 59 percent cut in the training budget is amazing,” said Councilman Brent Murphree.

The other large reduction brought forth was pulling $70,000 from the $200,000 council sets aside for teen programming.

It was not only city staff at the retreat that provided reduction information to the table. Council decided to cancel a partnership with the Buxton Company, which provides the city with data on which retailers Maricopans most frequent outside of the city. “Every developer says the type of modeling this company provides doesn’t matter,” Diedrich said.

Another point of interest brought up was possible scaling back the amount of funding the city provides the Maricopa Chamber of Commerce.

“If you look at their operating budget, we provide them with 50 percent of their revenue,” Diedrich said. “The chamber is a member-based organization, and we need to look at things that benefit the greatest number of people when facing an operating deficit.” Diedrich added at some point the chamber will need to be on its own.

Mayor Anthony Smith added the city is giving the chamber ample opportunities to raise funds through Salsa Festival and Founders Day.

Besides mulling over the city’s budget for the coming year, Evans also rolled a new organizational chart in which current public safety director Patrick Melvin was elevated to assistant city manager overseeing police, fire and code enforcement.

“I already know what every one is going to ask,  and no, Patrick is not getting a raise,” Evans said. “This is just a way to expand upon his current duties.”

With the move, Melvin will be relocated from the public safety administrative office to city hall.

In addition to Melvin’s reclassification, the police and fire chiefs were elevated to director level on the chart and assistant to the city manager Paul Epson was reclassified as intergovernmental relations manager.

Councilwoman Marquisha Griffin said she liked the new format but was not thrilled about the city placing the public information officer under the economic development department. “Public information should really be a department of its own,” she said.

The city is looking to have its tentative budget adopted May 4. “The tentative budget will set the maximum funding number, but we can still go back in and reduce or remove funding,” Sneed said.

Photo by Michael K. Rich