Queen Creek proposes leaner budget for next fiscal year

The Queen Creek Town Council will be voting on a proposed $682.7 million budget — with more than half allocated to public safety, transportation and water resources — when it meets on May 7.

A vote on the town’s final fiscal year 2025-26 budget will take place on May 22.

The recommended $682.7 million budget is 6% lower than the $723.8 million budget for the current fiscal year. It also marks the second consecutive year the budget has shrunk. In the 2023-24 fiscal year the town’s budget was $867.1 million.

The new fiscal year starts on July 1.

Town Manager Bruce Gardner presented the council with the proposed budget at an April 16 meeting.

“The budget includes the full reduction of the 0.25% Town Center sales tax repealed by the council last year and it also continues to freeze property taxes for a third consecutive year — both of these providing tax relief to our Queen Creek residents,” Gardner said. “The budget also includes the continued efforts done by the council in the water resources.”

He added that the budget was “developed in an environment of continued up and down inflation, tight labor markets, supply-chain concerns. With that said, the town’s financial conditions continue to weather these uncertain times better than expected.”

Scott McCarty, the town’s chief financial officer, elaborated on the headwinds the town has faced while pulling together the budget.

“We have economic uncertainty and that’s spanning from federal policy and tariffs to inflation and mortgage rates and unemployment — movement by the day, by the week. That’s what’s been going on especially over the last four to six weeks. It’s just something that we have to acknowledge that is out there,” McCarty said.

He added that while in the past Arizona in general and Queen Creek in particular have managed to weather bad economic times better than other parts of the nation, the current uncertainties could bring “some more long-term systemic issues related to the economy.”

Infrastructure costs make up 52% of the proposed budget, or $355.6 million. The infrastructure budget includes:

• Transportation- $119.1 million
• Water - $68.8 million
• Police - $55.3 million
• Water resources - $40 million
• Parks – $26.8 million
• Wastewater - $17.2 million
• Fire - $11.5 million

The deepest cut in the proposed budget is in transportation infrastructure from $173.5 million this year to a proposed $119.1 million next year for a decrease of $54.4 million.

“Yeah, the budget’s down, but I don’t think that reflects that it’s a lower priority for the council. It just means that there is a different list of projects that we’re doing next year than we did this year,” said McCarty.

The budget report also stated that the town “has been successful in securing commitments from regional partners toward these infrastructure needs to help defray the costs of certain major projects. Pinal County, Maricopa County, and the flood control district have committed millions of dollars toward road, drainage and utility projects.”

Also seeing a substantial cut is parks and recreation, as the 2025-26 budget will not include big-ticket items such as new parks.

The budget for new parks and expansion was $170.9 million for the 2023-24 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 at the time, the infrastructure budget for parks fell to $73.3 million in the current fiscal year.

“The (2025-26) budget includes $26.8 million to purchase land for future parks, building out the town’s trails system and closing out final costs for the Recreation & Aquatic Center,” the budget report stated.

The Queen Creek Police Department will have a $1 million increase in infrastructure costs as the town seeks to accommodate the growing force.

The department is getting a new headquarters and a parking structure, and the former Barney Family Sports Complex is being overhauled into a public safety complex to support QCPD and the Queen Creek Fire & Medical Department.

The joint facility is expected to be finished at the end of this year, with the headquarters and parking structure set for completion in 2028.

The $69.5 million joint facility and the estimated $59.6 million headquarters and parking garage will be paid out of $75 million in bonds sold in December, plus another $75 million bond issuance set for 2026. The total $150 million in bonds also will be used to pay for new roads and other infrastructure.

The debt will be paid through impact and capacity fees, the operating budget, the 2% sales tax dedicated to transportation, and water and wastewater rates.

In terms of personnel, the proposed budget calls for the addition of 15 new positions in the Queen Creek Police Department and two for the Queen Creek Fire & Medical Department, plus another 20 new positions throughout the town government.

Four of those positions will go toward a new town attorney’s office as part of the council’s goal to move contracted legal services in-house.

Under the proposed budget, town employees will see a modest increase in compensation and a “3% increase in medical premiums, which the town is absorbing, and no increase in medical premiums for town employees,” the report stated.

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