Employee retention, public safety top Phoenix manager’s budget plan
INDEPENDENT NEWSMEDIA
Posted 3/22/23
An initial Phoenix city budget proposal for 2023-24 emphasizes the need to pay employees adequately to retain current workers and attract others in a competitive labor market.
Phoenix City Manager …
You must be a member to read this story.
Join our family of readers for as little as $5 per month and support local, unbiased journalism.
Current print subscribers can create a free account by clicking here
Otherwise, follow the link below to join.
To Our Valued Readers –
Visitors to our website will be limited to five stories per month unless they opt to subscribe. The five stories do not include our exclusive content written by our journalists.
For $6.99, less than 20 cents a day, digital subscribers will receive unlimited access to YourValley.net, including exclusive content from our newsroom and access to our Daily Independent e-edition.
Our commitment to balanced, fair reporting and local coverage provides insight and perspective not found anywhere else.
Your financial commitment will help to preserve the kind of honest journalism produced by our reporters and editors. We trust you agree that independent journalism is an essential component of our democracy. Please click here to subscribe.
Need to set up your free e-Newspaper all-access account? click here.
Non-subscribers
Click here to see your options for becoming a subscriber.
Register to comment
Click here create a free account for posting comments.
Note that free accounts do not include access to premium content on this site.
I am anchor
Proposed Phoenix Budget
Employee retention, public safety top Phoenix manager’s budget plan
Posted
INDEPENDENT NEWSMEDIA
An initial Phoenix city budget proposal for 2023-24 emphasizes the need to pay employees adequately to retain current workers and attract others in a competitive labor market.
Phoenix City Manager Jeff Barton released his balanced “trial budget,” which will be the subject of 11 public hearings throughout the city following its release to the city council on Tuesday, March 21.
The proposed budget will provide “new and expanded programs and services to the community and ensure the city can competitively pay its employees in order to attract and retain a highly skilled workforce,” a city release said.
“This year’s trial budget is focused on ensuring that we can deliver quality, timely and efficient services to our residents,” Barton said.
“Over the last three years, the city has made smart, strategic decisions and has expanded programs to assist our residents with the impact and aftermath of COVID-19. The trial budget ensures that those vital services and, most importantly, the people who provide them can be sustained for years to come.”
The proposal includes $14 million for service additions in areas such as public safety and criminal justice, including adding firefighters to staff a new fire station located at 19th Avenue and Chandler Boulevard. It also seeks to further efforts to “civilianize positions in the police department to allow sworn officers to respond to higher-level public safety calls for service,” the release stated.
Money also is allocated to continue expiring grant-funded programs to support low-income residents and victims of crime.
Among other expenditures such as added park rangers and increases in arts funding, city administrators have reserved $1 million “for community input and recommendations reflecting resident comments gathered over the next several weeks” during the budget public meetings, according to the release.
Barton emphasized the city is experiencing “significant vacancy rates due to the competitive labor market and therefore approximately 85%, or $114 million, of the total $134 million surplus in the 2023-24 trial budget is allocated to employee compensation.
“This investment in our employees is necessary and will help to fill vacant positions so the services residents rely on and expect can continue to be provided with improved service levels.”
After community review, Barton will present a revised proposed budget to the Phoenix City Council on May 2. The council is expected to decide on the budget on May 16. The approved budget will take effect July 1.
We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.