By J. Graber
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After meeting eight times since February, the Scottsdale Budget Review Commission had no hard and fast recommendations on next year’s budget or the budgeting process when it met with the Scottsdale City Council April 22.

Members of the commission felt they simply did not have enough time to delve into such complex issues deeply enough to make any significant recommendations.

The commissioners discussed 15 topics during a two-hour presentation but put very little weight behind their thoughts.

“It’s important to say at the outset that these are topics for your consideration,” commission chairman David Smith told the council. “They are not hard recommendations. We are not trying to box you into the corner on any particular item, but on every one of these topics we’re saying, ‘We offer this for your consideration and study before you approve the budget.”

In fact, group members couldn’t even agree on how healthy the city’s finances really are.

The proposed operating budget is set to go up $49 million next year while revenue is only predicted to go up $3 million, Smith pointed out.

“It raises in our minds and did raise several times discussions on whether this budget is sustainable,” Smith said. “We know it’s balanced, budgets have to be balanced, that’s not necessarily (something you) give a round of applause for, ... but the more important thing for our community will always be is it a sustainable budget? Is it providing on a consistent and future basis the services that our citizens expect and that our tourists expect?”

Smith said that has not been done in the past.

“We all know in the past the city has not sustainability met its needs or otherwise we wouldn’t have had to go to the voters and ask for money last year to take care of parks (last year), which have been neglect. You also know, if you drove here tonight and hit the multiple pot holes in the road that the streets have been neglected.”

However, Commissioner Mark Stephens disagreed with Smith.

“While there is a lot of moving parts to (the budget) and a lot of complexities to it, my gut feel tells me that it is looked at from a very responsible standpoint when it comes to being structurally balanced ... my gut tells me maybe it’s not quite as bleak as you were just told,” Stephens said.

The discussion went on to cover everything from a cost/benefit analysis for the creation of an advanced purification recycled water project that went in cost from a $17 million to $67.7 million to the suspension of the 1.7% grocery tax and the 0.15% preserve tax passed in 2004.

The commission voted 5-2 to urge the council to consider removing the grocery tax, which is as high as it can be by law, or at least reduce it. Smith noted most communities don’t have a grocery tax.

“You can make it whatever you want, but to make it at the highest level seems unfair,” Smith said. “It also seems inevitable that the state Legislature is going to deal with this at some point in the future and I think the feeling was, of some of us, if the council gave consideration to this, you could be a hero rather than being told what to do by the state Legislature.”

Smith said the consideration of stopping the 2004 parks and preserve tax was also very controversial. Once the debt is repaid the tax cannot be legally used for anything else because the preserve has stopped growing in size, Smith said.

“At some time this tax should be stopped so that citizens are not putting money into a bucket that cannot be spent for anything other than, as I said before, perhaps the limited laundry list of things in our city charter: payment of debt, land and trails.”

However, commissioner Carla refuted Smith’s comments.

“(The council) received a very lengthy letter from Howard Meyers who was the author of Proposition 420 and he says very clearly that the money can be used on these trail head improvements and they can be spent on whatever the Rio Verde (wildlife overpass) crossing becomes ... and his group, Protect our Preserve, if there is a differing legal opinion, they will challenge that,” Carla said.

One topic everyone seemed to agree upon is the need to improve the city’s road conditions.

Scottsdale’s roads measure an average in the 60s on the pavement condition index (PCI), which measures how drivable roads are on a scale of zero to 100.

“We really strongly support of setting a goal of PCI somewhere between 75 and 80,” said commission vice chair Daniel Schweiker.

He said if the city does not maintain roads properly, it’s only going to cost more in the long run to rebuild them.

“As I recall in conversation, to maintain all of the roads in Scottsdale is about a $21 million a year project and it was funded for many years at about $14 million so then you have to play catch up,” Schweiker saidl

Councilman Adam Kwasman gave credit to vice mayor Jan Dubauskas, whom, he said, has championed improving the city’s roads.

“I have to give a public shout out to the vice mayor on this issue,” he said. “This is something that she really (brought to) the eye of the residents. It was something that really was her baby and took it to heart and took to task current and former staff members that were in the city of Scottsdale that were not being truthful. I want everybody to know this, they were not being truthful about the nature and the extent of the roads. They told us one thing, the PCI was very different we found out a little bit later and asked a second time.”

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