Name: City proposes ‘prudent’ spending plan for 2024-25
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City proposes ‘prudent’ spending plan for 2024-25

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                                Chandler’s recent boom economic times are starting to wind down and the budget city staff presented to the city council is reflecting that.Staff briefed Council at an all-day budget session on April 26, proposing a $1.629 billion spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1. That is 1.6% less than the current $1.66 billion budget.“This is a fiscally prudent budget that focuses on core services, infrastructure and using one-time revenues to create long-term savings and opportunities,” said Dawn Lang, the deputy city manager and chief financial officer.
        The city has had a lot of extra one-time dollars in recent years, primarily because of two factors: The first is millions handed out by the federal government for pandemic relief. The second is Intel’s expansion of its Ocotillo campus and workers spending money here have propelled sales tax revenue.Both of those are coming to an end. Lang said the city only has a little more than $1 million of its American Rescue Plan Act funds left and those funds must be spent by the end of this calendar year.Construction at Intel’s campus proceeds and the latest estimate is it will wrap up in 2026. Then all those construction workers will move on to the next job and no longer be spending their money in Chandler.There is a proposed increase in the capital improvement budget, driven largely by inflation. That jumped 2.3% to $876.5 million. Staff made up for that by decreasing the operating budget 5.4% to $752.6 million.The proposed budget that Council will be voting on this month continues to cut the primary property tax rate for the ninth straight year and contains no increases to utility rates.One of the priorities for this year’s budget was converting employees who are being paid with those extra one-time funds to getting paid with General Fund dollars. Lang said the city could do that for 26 city employees.“I think we’re all in favor of taking these one-time employees that have been one-time employees for longer than the duration for some other employees and turning them into ongoing where it makes sense,” Mayor Kevin Hartke said.Council has made it a priority to turn one-time dollars into ongoing savings and Hartke pointed to two previous projects that accomplished this. The first was using that extra money to pay off the city’s unpaid liability to the Arizona Public Service Personnel Retirement System that covers pensions for retired police and firefighters.Chandler has paid $122 million toward that debt in the past two years and believes it is close to having paid it off. Officials won’t find out until June 30 if it is paid off, or if they still owe a small amount. The proposed budget includes $7 million in case some debt remains or if its future payments to the fund must increase.
        Since that money is invested, cities and towns never have an exact number on where they stand. There is a chance that the state PSPRS’ investments turn out well and the city owes nothing.In either case, not having to pay off that debt will allow the city to spend money on other needs.Chandler also used some one-time funds to convert all street lights in the city to LED, saving more than $600,000 a year. Those bulbs are more efficient, requiring less electricity.&nbsp;Hartke said he’s tired of hearing that savings will go to support police officers. The city has said in the past it would be able to support 10 new police hires with the savings. Hartke pointed out the money saved would go to the General Fund and it would be up to Council to decide how to spend it.The city also spent some one-time dollars on its solar project. Chandler is in the early stages of adding solar panels to 23 buildings and hopes to save about $42 million over a decade that it pays for electricity.The budget adds 48 positions to the city’s staff of about 1,700, though 26 of those are already working for the city but under one-time dollars.&nbsp;Most of those new positions are for the city’s largest department, public safety, which is getting 28 new employees.Lang said inflation is driving up the cost of the city’s capital improvement projects. Staff estimates the cost of everything in its 10-year plan has increased 27% to nearly $2.5 billion.A lot of that money needs to be spent to replace or update aging infrastructure. Many of the pipes and facilities the city relies on were built 50 years ago and are nearing the end of their life cycle.Lang said that while $1.62 billion is a large number, the city will actually only spend about half of that. The rest gets carried over to pay for projects in upcoming years.“Although the budget is a little over $1.6 billion, we never spend all that amount in a given year,” Lang said. “On average, we really spend — at least looking at the last three years — 51.8% is actually spent, the rest falls back into fund balance.” &nbsp;
        
                                
                                



                                
                                
                                
                                Chandler’s recent boom economic times are starting to wind down and the budget city staff presented to the city council is reflecting that.Staff briefed Council at an all-day budget session on April 26, proposing a $1.629 billion spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1. That is 1.6% less than the current $1.66 billion budget.“This is a fiscally prudent budget that focuses on core services, infrastructure and using one-time revenues to create...

City proposes ‘prudent’ spending plan for 2024-25

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