Town Council approves $107 million budget

The Town Council on Monday approved a $107 million budget for fiscal year 2008-09 and met with lawyers to discuss a lawsuit filed by Rancho Sahuarita against the town.

The $107,352,760 budget was approved 6-0, with Vice Mayor Phil Conklin absent. There were no changes from the tentative budget approved on June 9.

The new budget, which takes effect July 1, is a 17.3 percent increase over the current year budget of $91 million.

There was no council discussion, except that Town Council member John Sullivan pointed out that the operations part of the budget is less than 20 percent of the budget.

“Most people think governments are spending like crazy, but operations is only what, about 15 to 16 percent of the budget?” Sullivan said.

Town Finance Director A.C. Marriotti said the operations portion is 17.2 percent of total budget.

Marriotti also noted that spending would go up by $829,750, or 1.2 percent, from this year’s budget, to a total of $72,850,000. Nearly all the rest of the budget is an expansion of ending fund balances increases to $34 million from $19 million in the current year budget, a 77.2 percent expansion.

The 2008-09 budget is heavy with capital projects, such as roads and parks, Marriotti told the council. The 2008-09 budget includes $50.5 million of the town’s five-year $146.2 million capital spending plan.

The town has been very successful at attracting outside funding for its capital projects, the finance director said.

Although the council has not yet approved the spending in the last four years of the five-year capital plan, the town has attracted $77 million in funding from outside sources for projects in the five-year plan, or 52.7 percent of the $146 million total.

Both the one-year budget and the five-year capital plan involve a lot of borrowing, in part because there is not a better time to borrow, with interest rates so low, Marriotti said, and because with inflation running at 4.18 percent in the past year, it is more economical to borrow and buy land to build now rather than delay such spending.

The other sources of capital spending over the five-year period include $45.5 million in long-term debt, including loans from several state agencies ( 31.2 percent) and $23.3 million from town sources.

Some of the big spending items for next year that involve borrowing include the expansion of the Wastewater Treatment plant, $23.7 million; the wastewater building construction, $1.6 million, both from the state’s Wastewater Infrastructure Financing Authority, and the North Park and sports lighting, $2.3 million and $610,000 for the Quail Crossing Boulevard extension to Nogales Highway, both from the Greater Arizona Development Authority.

Other outside funding includes $2.6 million from the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) half-cent sales tax plus more than $6 million from state fuel tax and a state economic development grant for Sahuarita Road improvements from Interstate 19 to Country Club Road, a project that eventually will involve more than $30 million in RTA funds.

The 2008-09 budget was built in part around the idea of maintaining existing resources, Marriott said, and gave as an example, adding lights for existing parks.

The council also approved without discussion a code change regulating political signs in the public right of way. The change was to drop the wording that banned placement of such signs 30 days before elections.

The council voted 4-2 to extend a legal deadline for Rancho Sahuarita to file documents as part of a possible second lawsuit against the town. Town Council members Scott Downs and Marty Moreno voted no without comment.

Town Attorney Dan Hochuli said the town was making progress on negotiations aimed at resolving the original lawsuit and extending the deadline for legal filings on a possible second suit was a way to spare Rancho Sahuarita time and expense when the matter may be settled out of court.

In other news, Rancho Sahuarita has hired as community liaison Tom Murphy, a member of the Sahuarita Unified School District Governing Board.

Meanwhile, Rancho Sahuarita Senior Vice President Cort Chalfant will leave the organization on July to return to the East Coast.

pfranchine@sahuaritasun.com | 547-9738