The latest proposed city budget includes a $0.35 property tax increase, City Manager Ed Zuercher said at a City Council meeting on Tuesday.
Zuercher said the proposed tax increase, from $1.82 per $100 assessed value to $2.17, is meant to help fund restoration of employee compensation, public safety needs and other community services such as parks and libraries. This translates to a yearly property tax increase of $51, for the typical Phoenix single-family residence.
“I believe the proposed budget reflects public input and provides a balanced approach to our debt service requirements, long-term financial stability, quality of life and recognition of the hard work of our employees,” Zuercher said.
The City Manager’s office presented a trial budget to City Council in March that included five possible options to balance the general fund. These options included increasing property tax, using the general fund surplus to maintain tax rates, reducing general fund programs and services by $37 million or looking for other sources of revenue.
RELATED: Trial budget calls for higher taxes and more public safety spending, employee compensation
Zuercher said option one (increasing the secondary property tax rate by $0.35) received the most public support from speakers at 15 community budget hearings held around the city after the trial budget was proposed in March. According to statistics from Budget and Research Director Jeff Barton, 84 percent of speakers at the hearings supported option one. 13 percent supported option two (looking for other revenue sources), and 3 percent supported option five (reducing programs and services by $37 million).
Among the programs and services the proposed budget would be able to fund are arts grants and arts maintenance. The budget adds $10,000 to the original amount set aside in the trial budget for arts grants, raising that amount to $60,000. The proposed budget also added $25,000 for arts maintenance.
Gary Egan, Bill Way and Amanda Cruz of the Phoenix Art Museum spoke in support of the proposed budget, citing the necessity of the increased funding it provided in maintaining their programs and facilities.
“If we don’t approve this budget and cuts go in, the impact on the Phoenix Art Museum would be substantial,” said Bill Way, a member of the museum’s board of trustees. “We would lose out in support for education, greater diversity of attendance and community gathering spaces that are open to everyone … It would be cutting at the core of who we are and aspire to be as a city.”
The proposed budget provides for the implementation of body cameras for the Phoenix Police Department over a period of five years, for a total cost of $11.4 million. This is a change from the trial budget presented in March, which proposed that body cameras should be implemented over three years. The most recent budget also provides for the hiring of 145 police officers and 36 firefighters.
Barton referred to a study the ASU Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety is conducting on how body cameras are perceived by citizens and police officers in Tempe and in Spokane, Washington.
“We think that we’re still making that same commitment to the community to implement body cameras,” Barton said. “We think that’s important, but what we think we gain by extending that over five years are several things. Number one, I think it allows us to really take into account the study and the results of the study that ASU is really putting forward. We also think that it allows us to actually get our hands around how the policies and procedures of body cameras are really going to work.”
District 2 Councilman Jim Waring and District 6 councilman Sal DiCiccio disputed the funding for body cameras, saying the money could be more effectively used for hiring more officers in addition to those allotted for in the budget.
“It’s great that we’re hiring more officers, we’re still short, but we could hire 40 more,” Waring said. “Perhaps we’ll have fewer lawsuits (if police officers are outfitted with body cameras), maybe citizens and police officers interacting — that’ll go smoother than maybe it has in the past, but it sounds like the ASU study isn’t done, so we don’t know that for sure.”
Several community members at the meeting spoke in support of city funding for body cameras.
“No matter what race you are, no matter what religion you are, body cameras are a win-win situation for police officers and for the citizens,” said Benjamin Taylor, an attorney based in Phoenix. “We have the money to implement hiring more officers and the money to implement body cameras … Put the trust in the community, put the trust in officers, and let’s go ahead with the budget.”
The Phoenix city council will vote May 17 on whether to approve the proposed budget.
Contact the reporter at Faith.Anne.Miller@asu.edu.
