Mesa City Council looks at proposed budget for fiscal year 2025-26

By Connor Van Ligten
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The Mesa City Council was given a presentation on the proposed budget for fiscal year 2025-26 at a May 1 study session.

The presentation was given by Management & Budget Director Brian A, Ritschel and Operations Budget Coordinator Kristi Griffin.

Based on a pie chart for public safety, general governmental and general capital funds in the presentation, the city proposes $418.4 million in funds from those sources for public safety in fiscal year 2025-26, not counting $31.9 million general governmental funds carryover.

“There are some departments that support public safety, so what we’ve done is allocate 55% of the budget to public safety,” Ritschel said.

Of that $418.4 million, the presentation proposes 68% of that going to police expenditures for a total of $285.3 million; 29% would go to fire and medical expenditures at $122.5 million; and the remaining 3% would go to court expenditures at $10.6 million.

The presentation also shows projected public safety related revenues that add up to $418.4 million coming into the city.

“For these revenues that the city receives that support the public safety, 32% of that is the utility fund transfer. We also get some from quality of life that supports public safety,” Ritschel said. “You can see 53% is just regular state sales tax, city sales tax, state shared revenue and more.”

A total of 53% of the revenue is projected to come from $220.8 million in city sales tax, state shared revenues and other revenues; 32% is projected to come from $136.1 million in utility contributions; 10% would come from $40.3 million in revenue from quality of live services. Fire revenues account for 2% of that forecast for a total of $6.4 million, 2% from police for $9.8 million and 1% from courts for $5 million.

Council member Julie Spilsbury asked Rithschel how a fund factors into the revenue forecasts.

“How is the general fund represented in that (pie chart)?” Spilsbury asked.

“The general fund would be minus the quality of life. The general governmental fund is two funds.” Ritschel said. “It’s the general fund and the quality of life fund we put together as the general governmental fund. The quality of life portion of that revenue is the $40.3 million, if you subtract that from the $418.4 million, so about $378 million is coming from the general fund itself.”

Mesa City Manager Chris Brady also clarified that revenue from utility contributions is considered part of the general fund, which is why it’s not included as its own section on the pie chart.

“We consider the utility contribution part of the general fund,” Brady said. “Quality of life is a dedicated sales tax. The utility contribution is a transfer from the utility after that.”