Despite coming to a stalemate during an anti-light rail activist debacle for seven days, the City of Phoenix passed its 2018-19 fiscal budget on Wednesday.
The first vote, on June 20, was deadlocked as Councilman Nowakowski, claiming he needed more information on the light rail extension, joined Councilmembers Laura Pastor, Jim Waring, and Sal DiCiccio in opposition. Standing 4-4, the budget was stalled until June 27, when Pastor and Nowakowski swung back again, while DiCiccio was not present. This time only Councilman Jim Waring voted in opposition.
The Phoenix city budget allocates funds for a variety of items through the year, including programs in downtown.
Here’s what’s slated for some of the most pertinent items to downtown:
Trees and Shade
In order to follow the city’s 2010 Tree and Shade Master Plan, $450,000 will be allocated to plant 750 trees annually. The extra funds will also be used to create and maintain irrigation systems to support the new vegetation. However, the city loses about 100 to 200 trees a year due to storms and car accidents. Other factors can lead to a loss of up to 1,000 trees citywide each year.
Homelessness
The Phoenix CARES program, aimed at centralizing city relief efforts and addressing homeless encampments through one streamlined system, will use $225,000 to increase its number of Outreach Teams from seven to nine, add case workers and two temporary positions. This is predicted to increase the number of individuals reached by the program by approximately 360. The additional funds are also projected to improve services and raise the number of homeless individuals entering permanent housing from 10 percent to 30 percent.
The budget allocates $75,000 with the goal of permanently housing 100 homeless this fiscal year.
Two temporary positions and extra equipment to clean up homeless encampments are included in the budget, totaling up to $573,000. Alley clean ups will grow from two times per week to five, tackling a projected 50-60 encampments per week rather than the current 15.
Census Spending
The city is allocating $151,000 to support the fully online 2020 Census, which includes hiring a supervisor to increase participation.
Additionally, in late May, the Phoenix City Council voted 6-2 to join a lawsuit along with other states and cities challenging the inclusion of a citizenship question on the census questionnaire. The citizenship question hasn’t been part of the census since 1950 and has been proven to lower turnout, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Effects on Phoenix may be especially strong because of the large undocumented population, leading to a loss of up to $170 million federal dollars annually, according to City Manager Karen Peters.
Library Hours
During Burton Barr’s year-long closure, four other Phoenix Public Library branches added Sunday opening hours. The city has decided to keep these hours even after Burton Barr’s recent reopening. Yucca, Ocotillo, Harmon and Century libraries will continue to be open from 1 to 5 pm on Sundays for an extra $295,000 in the budget. According to the city, the extra hours increased visitation by 10 percent at the branches, although library hours remain at 67 percent of what they were pre-Great Recession.
Latino Cultural Center
The budget will include $159,000 to add a temporary management position to oversee the creation of the Latino Cultural Center, slated for downtown Phoenix. The supervisor would work in tandem with the Phoenix City Council and the community to develop the center, which has been gathering funds since 2009.
Pedestrian Safety
A Pedestrian Safety Coordinator will be hired for $172,000 to assess collision causes, trends, risk factors and to make infrastructure improvement suggestions. Three additional professionals will be hired for a total of $145,000 to assist in creating and maintaining pavement markers, arrows and crosswalks in alignment with the city’s Transportation 2050 policy goals.
The city did not address the Complete Streets Guidelines, which caused controversy in late May when all but two of the Complete Streets Advisory Board members resigned in frustration at being unable to pass them. The guidelines aim to create walkable, bikeable and public transit friendly streets, and have not been adopted in the four years since the program’s inception. Earlier in April, board member Connor Descheemaker* submitted an unsuccessful petition asking the city to adopt the guidelines, citing the five boards and 42 community meetings the guidelines had already gone through.
The city wrote about pedestrian safety in the 2018-19 budget agenda this way: “Although other expressed community needs are not able to be addressed in this budget due to lack of available resources, the City will continue to examine how the other requests from residents may be addressed in the future.”
Property Taxes
According to the city’s latest Truth in Taxation Notice, the primary property tax will be raised by approximately 2 percent above previous year’s levels in this year’s budget. Although the tax rate went down from the 2017-18 fiscal year, it was not enough to offset the increase in the assessed value of properties in Phoenix and therefore will result in an average 2 percent increase in taxes paid by property owners. The tax is now $1.3163 per $100. The primary property tax is used to fund public services like police, parks and community centers.
*Editor’s Note: Connor Descheemaker was previously a member of the Downtown Devil staff. He did not contribute to the reporting or editing of this story.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Councilman Sal DiCiccio changed his vote between the June 20 and June 27 council meetings. He was not present for the second vote. The story has been updated to reflect this.
Contact the reporter at rspiess@asu.edu.
