Last week, the Sedona City Council tentatively approved a $105.7 million expenditure budget — the largest in the city’s history thus far.
After months of discussion and workgroup sessions, the expenditure budget is tentatively approved and will face a final vote in August.
“I think our biggest challenge from a staff perspective is trying to accomplish everything that’s funded within this budget. It is significant and it is ambitious. So at this point, I feel like the dollar amount gives us flexibility and opportunity for something like land acquisition,” City Manager Karen Osburn said. “Should things come up within the year, I think we can be flexible and adaptable. But our plates are very full of new programs, projects and services. So I’d like to see us get going with some of these before we would even think about adding anything additional.”
This $105,745,040 expenditure budget accounts for both the $49,959,990 operating budget and the $55,785,050 capital improvement budget. The 2023 operating budget rose 17% from the last fiscal year while the capital improvement budget increased 181% from the previous fiscal year.
“There were a lot of changes from the proposed budget to the tentative budget,” Director of Finance Cherie Wright said. “There are lots of things that are in motion and actively being worked on so there are things that have been changed.”
At the previous discussion for the budget, city staff recommended a $112,933,480 million budget. One of the largest decreases to the budget came from the Uptown parking garage’s delayed construction timeline that lowered this year’s budget by $5.5 million. Other changes include decreased spending in departments and reallocating funds from smaller projects.
“There’s a $6 million trim on the number that we were talking about, and that is because pencils were sharpened, capacity was considered. That review was done. I don’t think it’s realistic to add anything additional to this,” Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella said. “I was happy to see this come down to something that I think is more manageable. It’s still a huge number, so I don’t think we’re manageable in terms of that. But it was truly looked at and thought about in terms of our capacity. So I just want to say that I’m very happy that the staff did that.”
The balanced budget shows that the city has $151.2 million in total resources available but only a total of $105.7 million in the budget with $45.5 million. But according to Wright, the surplus in years past has usually been higher.
“We never spend this amount,” Wright said. “We’re usually anywhere from like 15% to 20% under that expenditure number. I can’t guarantee it’s going to be that amount again because we set it intentionally to account for all those various contingences … but some of those things do not pan out.”
The final budget adoption meeting will take place on Tuesday, Aug. 9.
