Gilbert Town Council will consider in the coming weeks the best approach for covering large water utility rate hikes and how to address a shortfall in the general fund to cover its coming capital improvement projects.
Those were the most pressing decisions to be made as laid out on Day 1 of the town’s annual strategic retreat Monday at the Southeast Regional Library.
The retreat, which concludes Tuesday, includes staff presentations on a variety of topics which the town will address in the coming year.
Town Manager Patrick Banger told staff and council in his opening remarks that the town has critical decisions to make as it approaches build-out in the next decade or sooner.
“These final decisions we make are going to cement again the trajectory that we're on for this community,” Banger said. “So we need to make sure we make the best ones possible, and sometimes those decisions are going to be really challenging because they're going to involve investments, investments of money, and that money comes from our businesses and from our taxpayers and our residents.”
One involves financial pressure on the town’s “enterprise funds” for water and solid waste/recycling services. The funds are self-sustaining, neither supported by taxes nor supporting other town operations, Assistant Public Works Director Eric Braun said.
In the case of water, council members will have to decide in late November whether to make the fund healthy enough to support current levels of service through cash funding, which would raise the water portion of customers’ bills by 130%, or sell some bonds and phase increases over three years — 50% next April, 25% in 2025 and 25% or more in 2026.
The causes include the rising cost of raw water and treatment of that water, plus the escalating construction costs for the North Water Treatment Plant and adding additional wells, Braun said.
Council members expressed mixed feelings on the two approaches and asked that both options be presented to them when they consider a notice to increase rates later this month.
Council also will consider raising the solid waste/recycling portion of customers’ utility bills and other services by 22%-25%. Like water, it has faced outside financial pressure from items like increased tipping fees at landfills and for recycled materials, plus escalating costs of repair and replacement of the service trucks.
Council members also indicated they want to consider a recommendation from the new Public Works Advisory Board to find ways to help homeowners who cannot keep up with such large increases.
Construction inflation in general is devastating the town’s capital improvement plan. Budget Director Kelly Pfost said the town has a more than a $153 million shortfall in its general fund to cover the capital projects that have been planned for the coming fiscal year.
Some of that is from the changing scope of some projects. Nonetheless, the town has pared its priority list to bring the shortfall down to fewer than $30 million, but it will be up to council to set final priorities and how to fund them.
The town has scheduled a council workshop on the problem for Dec. 11.
The town also reviewed the possibility of a “community preservation ordinance” that would help staff to make certain business and residential property owners are keeping up their properties.
The ordinance as presented by staff would expand the ordinance to allow the town to address property owners on backyards.
However, Development Services Director Kyle Mieras said the town wants to use an ordinance as a tool to help property owners work with the town to address problems rather than as a punishment to those who do not.
Other topics from the first day included an overview of the budget and capital improvement plan process and town employee benefits as Gilbert officials want to attract and retain quality staff members.
Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on X. We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
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