By Jason W. Brooks
Mail | X: @JasonWBrooks2

Thursday, June 12 marks a major milestone in a Chandler City Council annual process.

That’s when council is set to hold a mandatory public hearing on its annual property tax rates, as part of its 6 p.m. regular meeting.

As a separate special meeting afterward, council will approve its fiscal 2026 budget. Fiscal 2026, for Arizona local governments, runs July 1 through June 30.

Thursday’s meetings are set to be held at Chandler City Hall’s main chamber, 88 E. Chicago St. in downtown Chandler.

The city’s budget and policy director, Matt Dunbar, told council just before they granted tentative adoption of the budget May 22 that even though cities like Chandler have spent nearly all special COVID-19-era federal or state funds, there were still a few positions this year that the city transitioned into being fully funded by city general funds.

“We’ve found some savings with one-time dollars,” Dunbar said.

Council decided, informally, in work sessions to pursue a primary property tax rate decrease for the 10th consecutive year. Dunbar bragged about this on the city’s behalf during his May 22 presentation, along with mentioning Chandler’s transaction privilege tax rate, or TPT, continues to be what he calls the lowest in the state at 1.5%.

Chandler’s FY26 budget is set to be $1,628,875,875. That’s only a drop of $196,809, or about 0.1%, from its FY25 budget of $1,629,072,684.

The fiscal 2026 total includes a 3.5% decrease in capital spending and a 4.1% increase in operational spending from fiscal 2025.

The city’s general fund will grow by 6.6% as part of this year’s budget, along with an inflation-driven 9.9% increase in capital project budgeting.

Long-term, Dunbar said, there was about $129 million in budgeted costs added to the city’s $2.62 billion 10-year capital improvement plan, again driven partly by inflation.

The city will start in July on its water and wastewater rate setting process. That process is completed every two years, with a goal of starting a process in the summer for rates that would go into effect Jan. 1.

“We think the city will be in really good position on those rates as well,” Dunbar said.

The city plans to lower its property tax rate from 0.2126 for fiscal 2025 to 0.2118 for FY26. A staff report states the overall city tax for limited property values of about $256,000 would increase by $13.10 in the year ahead.

Council is slated to formally vote on approving its annual property tax rates at its June 26 meeting.

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