Queen Creek council approves final $723M budget

The Queen Creek Town Council has approved a final $723.8 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year – 17% smaller than the current fiscal year’s $867.1 million budget.

“One of the greatest accomplishments of this year’s budget is that we’re able to decrease the budget by 17% without impacting our programs or services,” Mayor Julia Wheatley said during Wednesday’s council meeting. “In addition, our team ensures the key financial policies are being followed as the budget is put together each year. Some of these policies include the reduction of certain fees, a freeze of our property taxes and the elimination of our street light improvement district and property taxes. These policies have resulted in $13.6 million in tax and fee reductions to our residents.”

The budget was passed on a vote of 6-1 with Council Member Travis Padilla dissenting. Vice Mayor Leah Martineau voted in favor of the budget – the first time since taking office in 2020.

“After much thought and thoroughly going through the budget, realizing I agree with a majority of it, I decided to vote yes this year,” Martineau stated in a text to the Queen Creek Independent. “We have frozen property taxes, eliminated several different taxes and the budget is $100 million less than last year. Our priorities are still infrastructure, public safety and water/wastewater. Queen Creek is a beacon of doing what is fiscally responsible.”

Almost 60%, or $423.8 million, of the budget is going to pay for police, water and wastewater, parks and transportation infrastructure. Within infrastructure, transportation gets the largest slice of the pie with $159.7 million.

“I’m also so proud that so much of our budget is going to important and impactful projects that benefit all of our residents. Nearly 60% of this budget is for infrastructure improvements with nearly $160 million of that going toward improvements related to transportation infrastructure – a priority that we have maintained as a council,” Wheatley said. “We’re also making investments in our public safety department, allocating for additional positions that will help our police and fire departments continue to provide great service as we grow.”

Despite the slimmer budget, funding for police, fire and community services was increased to allow hiring 87 more town employees – mostly in the police department – in the upcoming fiscal year. For example, the police department will see an increase of $8.3 million that will allow it to hire 55 employees, including officers. Under the new budget, the fire and medical department will be getting an additional $1.5 million in fiscal year 2024-25.

A sticking point over the last two budgets has been how much the town has spent on parks. The budget for new parks and expansion was $170.9 million this fiscal year. With the Mansel Carter Oasis Park expansion and the building of Frontier Family Park, including the new recreation and aquatic center, almost finished, the infrastructure budget for parks fell to $73.3 million for the upcoming fiscal year.

Wheatley has been a long-time champion of building more parks for the rapidly growing town.

“We’ve heard this evening from a number of our residents that our youth need something to do and while the private sector does provide that to an extent there are some things that the town is able to provide as well without cost being an obstacle for that youth,” Wheatley said at the council’s May 1 meeting when a tentative budget was approved. “I’m so happy to be able to provide that this year with our second phase of Mansel Carter Oasis Park. Our new Frontier Family Park, our aquatic and recreation center should give our youth quite a bit to keep them busy.”

Frontier Family Park’s grand opening is set for June 8, with the aquatic and recreation center set to open later this year or early next.

The leaner budget reflects not just cutting costs but also $13.6 million in tax reductions and fees, including the elimination of the quarter-cent tax for the Town Center, effective Oct. 1.

The town also is implementing a policy where the operating budget fund balance should be at least 100% of recurring expenses for the upcoming budget year. The excess amount over 100% is an “available fund balance” and can only be used for one-time expenses.

The more than $160 million in revenue expected for the town in 2024-25 comes from 10 sources, mainly the non-construction sales tax, state shared revenue, construction sales tax and property taxes. Projected revenue is expected to increase by 3% despite the second year of the property tax freeze, the elimination of the residential rental tax by state legislation and flattened state-shared revenues caused by reduced income tax revenue.

Property taxes remain frozen as they have since the council approved a five-year freeze in 2022.

“The budget as passed is chock-full of sane and responsible choices and policies including reductions in costs borne by our taxpayers,” Council Member Jeff Brown stated in an email to the Queen Creek Independent. “For instance, the budget codifies again our council’s commitment to a five-year property tax freeze; so that the amount you pay for QC services on your property tax next year and the following year will be the same as last year.”

Next up for the council is the adoption of the property tax levy on Wednesday, June 5. The levy will be set at the rate needed to maintain the property tax freeze approved by the council in 2022. The new fiscal year begins on Monday, July 1.

“This is the type of budgeting and fiscal sanity that QC is known for and shows how budgeting with adults in the room at the local level delivers results for residents that we just don’t see at the national level,” Brown said.

We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. Janet Perez can be reached at jperez@iniusa.org.