By Alison Ecklund

Larson Newspapers

The city of Sedona’s fiscal year 2009-10 budget will not exceed $44,522,917.

On Tuesday, May 26, Sedona City Council voted 5-1 to set the city’s budget cap after taking roughly $100,000 back from local nonprofits that it proposed giving in early May. Vice Mayor John Bradshaw was the dissenting vote.

After hours deliberating May 4 to come up with roughly an additional $100,000 for local nonprofits, Bradshaw wanted to stick with those numbers and cap the budget at $44,603,045.

The difference in the caps is only about $80,000, he said — a small number in the city’s budget, but a significant one to the outside organizations.

Interim City Manager Alison Zelms originally submitted a budget of $43,891,850 with $11.7 million in the general fund, down 1.5 million in expenditures from last year’s $13.2 million budgeted in the general fund.

In her proposed budget, the city would see a potential budgeted deficit of approximately $365,000.

During budget work sessions council bumped the general fund closer to $11.9 million by putting $200,000 in contingency for a proposed redevelopment plan in the West Sedona corridor of State Route 89A and adding $20,000 for Community-based Service Grants.

On May 4, council agreed to add nearly $100,000 to local nonprofits from the cuts Zelms proposed. On May 22, after news that March sales tax collections were down nearly 20 percent, council cut the added $100,000, agreeing with Zelms’ original proposal: $103,000 from Sedona-Oak Creek Chamber of Commerce, $7,500 from Sedona Community Center, $46,183 from Sedona Public Library, $4,126 from Sedona Recycles, $4,500 from Boys & Girls Club Sedona Teen Center, $3,487 from Sedona Main Street Program and $1,262 from Humane Society of Sedona.

Council also agreed to cut $6,000 from council retreats and add $1,400 to the city’s Volunteer Park Rangers.

On May 6, council put $26,000 in the contingency fund to perhaps open the community pool in March instead of May if the funds came in, but cut the idea May 22.

The contingency fund shows $520,000 in spendable contingency, including the $200,000 possibly for the redevelopment plan. Another $100,000 is set aside for legal contingency.

The city’s budgeted cap means the city may still need to dip into its $10 million reserve fund for $342,562, a number Zelms feels comfortable with, she said.

Fiscal year 2009-10 budget shows no cost of living allowance or merit increase for city staff and  $100,000 — a 40 percent reduction — was set aside for travel and training.

To avoid layoffs, the budget calls for a hiring freeze and to leave positions unfilled as they become vacant through attrition.

With construction levels down, the Department of Community Development is undergoing a review of its level of services and workloads in order to better align its position count with the new level of demands facing the department.

The bottom line, Mayor Rob Adams said, is the city is exceeding its ability to pay for what the community wants with just sales tax collections.

Councilwoman Pud Colquitt agreed.

“We can’t get enough people in this community to generate enough revenues as we need to generate,” she said. Besides tourist-generated sales tax, the city must come up with alternative revenues that the public pays for.

Bradshaw urged councilors to reconsider their May 22 decision and keep the additional funds to outside agencies.

“It’s not like with the numbers I’m presenting, these organizations aren’t taking cuts,” he said.

His motion to set the cap at $44,603,045 went unseconded.