Council wants teen center back on budget

The City Council expressed its desire to see a teen center added back into next year’s plan and possibly cutting pay to consultants while creating more of a safety net into the proposed budget during a special budget meeting Tuesday evening.

The council was practically unanimous in seeking to protect the teen center – or potentially other youth facilities, such as a skate park – from the budget cuts recommended by city staff due to a lack of after school activities for the city’s children. Councilman Carl Diedrich said he received a letter from a local sixth-grade student who was excited when he initially heard about the plan to rework the old library site into a teen center because it would provide a place for him and his friends to go without getting into trouble.

“I would strongly consider we look at other ways to trim our budget and not cut out services for teens and places for them to go,” he said.

The money to renovate and prepare the center would come from Maricopa’s Capital Improvement Plan, but Nicole Dailey, assistant to the city manager who is heading the city’s Community Services Department after Marty McDonald was let go, said delaying the project would save Maricopa about $120,000 in start up and staffing. Those costs are paid from the operating budget that needs to be trimmed by $12.1 million from the current fiscal year’s numbers.

Councilwoman Marquisha Griffin suggested the city go ahead with constructing the center but with scaled-back programs or hours in order to save costs. Using volunteers or students to staff the center was also recommended.

City Manager Kevin Evans said city staff would look for ways to possibly revise the budget to include the center. “We need to go back and figure out how to structure that,” he said.

Another topic of debate was the reduction or even elimination of pay for high-level consultants, such as economic development advisor Ioanna Morfessis. The council did approve cutting her compensation in half, to $90,000 a year, a few months ago (see related story), but with the city desperately trying to balance the budget for fiscal year 2010, several council members said they’re not sure that reduction was enough.

“The constituents are screaming that we spend too much money on consultants,” Diedrich said.

Evans cautioned about severing all ties with Morfessis, saying that her help is needed with three large potential projects on the horizon, which he said he couldn’t identify publically at this time.

“We seem to have a history in this city of paying consultants for whatever and whenever,” Councilman Marvin Brown said. “I think it’s something that should be looked at strongly.”

One highly paid consultant, airport advisor Ed Beauvais, was part of the layoffs announced by the city Monday (see related story).

Finance Director Cynthia Sneed revealed more details about the proposed $25.5 million operating budget during the meeting. She said in order to balance the budget in the face of declining revenue, city staff had set aside just $150,000 in contingency funding to pay for unforeseen items next year. Most of the council was uneasy with such a low figure, particularly since Sneed said she recommended the city should have at minimum 10 percent of the budget available in case emergencies arise. Diedrich said he wanted to see more contingency relief built in, particularly in case the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decides to levy restrictions in the area due to poor air quality from high PM10 particulate readings.

The city does have $34 million in its “rainy day” reserve fund and could elect to dip into that to provide a contingency cushion in the operating budget.

Griffin said she wants the city to consider looking at salary reductions or furloughs that would perhaps save some staff positions cut in the recent layoffs. Evans said an early draft of the budget did include a furlough that equaled a 5 percent cut in salary expenses, but the recommendation to postpone several projects allowed it to be removed.

The budget and finance subcommittee will meet Friday to further go over the proposals, and the council will continue its review of the budget during its work session prior to the regular council meeting on Tuesday.