Mesa Police Department updates city on budget

By Connor Van Ligten
Mail

Members of the Mesa Police Department gave members of the Mesa City Council a budget update at an April 10 study session, and the department will see increases in some area and reductions in others.

According to a council presentation as well as budget documents, the Mesa Police Department organizes its financial summary into five core business processes.

Council member Julie Spilsbury asked how these were defined.

“Could I get a list or summary of what falls under each of these categories?” Spilsbury asked.

According to budget documents, the first category is the executive services bureau, which is the chief’s office. The second is the community services bureau, which includes things such as community relations, forensic services, training, human resources and more. The third is the investigations bureau which primarily involves criminal investigations. The fourth is operations bureau, which focuses on patrols. The fifth is the professional services bureau, which controls communications, technical services, planning and research, support services and more.

In fiscal year 2023-24, the year-end actual budget for the Mesa Police Department came out to $278 million. For the 2024-25 fiscal year, that budget went up by over $36 million to a total of $314.4 million. The proposed budget for fiscal year 2025-26 comes out to $317.2 million.

“If you look at the fiscal year budget for 2024-25 compared to fiscal year 2023-24, you’ll notice a $36.3 million variance,” Mesa PD fiscal manager Krisa York said. “Over 50% of that variance is related to personal services. That includes not only the merits we have received for the current fiscal year but additional staffing as well as additional funding we received for overtime.“

The community services bureau funds went from $52.7 million in 2023-24 to $67.9 million in 2024-25 and a proposed number of $60.6 million for fiscal year 2025-26. The executives services bureau had $9.2 million in funds in 2023-24, $9.7 million in 2024-25, $13.1 million in 2025-26. The operations bureau had $117.8 million in funds in 2023-24, $114.2 in 2024-25, and $125.9 million for 2025-26. The investigations bureau had $54.1 million in 2024-24, $60.6 million in 2024-25 and $59.3 million in fiscal year 2025-26. The professional services bureau had $44.2 million in 2023-24, $62 million in 2024-25, and $58.3 million in 2025-26.

Councilmember Francisco Heredia, who called into the April 10 session remotely, asked about excessive overtime in the department.

“You touch on overtime. I keep hearing that overtime is an issue,” Heredia said. “Is there other steps to look at overtime and see how we can reduce that?”

Assistant Chief Ed Wessing pointed toward the presentation to show the work the department is doing on overtime reduction.

“The presentation covers our overall overtime reduction strategy,” Wessing said.

According to the presentation, the department started its overtime reduction efforts on Feb. 26, 2024. The department hopes to reduce at least $1 million in expenditures by reducing overtime. The presentation said that overtime hours totaled around 287,608 in fiscal year 2023-24, noting that reduction started nine months into the fiscal year. For fiscal year 2024-25, that number is expected to go down to 210,500, according to the presentation.