And apparently it’s also the season for flexibility on the revenue front.
But this time instead of COVID-19 wreaking havoc with budget planning, it’s an uncertain spring training season that is leaving city budget officials unable to fully project the next year’s numbers.
“From the revenue side of things, things are likely to change depending on whether we have spring training or not,” City Councilman Ken Remley said during the initial budget hearing for the fiscal year 2023 budget on March 1. “That’s a significant contributor to our sales tax revenue.”
Spring training is still on hold, making it three years in a row the city has had to deal with a shortened season or reduced capacity because of a pandemic and now a labor stoppage.
“It’s a living document, and it was really put to the test when COVID hit,” Mayor Skip Hall said.
The mayor praised Finance Director Andrea Davis and her staff for doing a “fabulous job navigating through that.”
Davis said the pandemic taught the city how to become more flexible with its finances.
“Just because it wasn’t the budget we adopted doesn’t mean we can’t adjust and change depending on what direction it’s going,” Davis told the City Council.
The fiscal year 2023 budget, with the uncertainty of if and when spring training will start, will next go in front of the City Council March 15 when Davis details the expected revenues and expenses for the upcoming fiscal year.
The city manager’s recommended budget retreat is scheduled for April 22, where the City Council will meet with the Finance Department staff throughout the day.
The tentative budget adoption is set for May 3, while the final budget adoption would come a month later on Tuesday, June 7.
The property tax levy adoption is on the schedule for June 21.
“A lot of people ask, ‘Do you do zero budgeting? Do you do base budgeting?’” Davis said during her March 1 report. “Really, we do strategic budgeting.”
That means taking the current year’s base budget and adding in new requests to get the next budget.
“We’re scrutinizing it throughout the year,” Davis said. “We don’t need to during the budget process start from zero and kind of restart.”
At the March 1 hearing, Davis presented the City Council with an update of the current fiscal year $486 million budget through the end of November.
State sales taxes are delayed around two months, but for the period through November the city’s general fund was seeing $2.9 million more in local sales tax revenue than was originally estimated in the budget.
“Sales tax continues to come in strong,” Davis said. “ We continue to watch what is going on with our economy.”
Stimulus money still helping to fuel the economy, she said.
“How’s that going to change once those packages stop flowing to people,” Davis said. “That’s probably our biggest concern. We’re having a great year this year but how does that look when everybody has spent that money?”
One the expense side of the 2022 budget, the city has saved about $1.3 million on personnel, mainly because of some vacant positions, Davis said.
Jason Stone can be reached at jstone@iniusa.org.
Jason Stone Senior News Editor | Surprise @thestonecave
Meet Jason Jason Stone joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2019, after a distinguished three decade media career that included stops at the Arizona Republic, iHeart Media/Clear Channel and Beckett Sports Card magazine. He remembers when airports sold newspapers.
Community: He is a big supporter of the Valley's original sports team: The Phoenix Suns.
Education: Northern Arizona University with a BS in broadcast journalism and a minor in sports coaching.
Random Fact: The capital of Nebraska is Lincoln.
Hobbies: Surfing, backgammon and men who aren't afraid to cry.
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