The Sedona Police Department is forecasting that it will make 21% more arrests and issue 44% more citations in fiscal year 2023 than it did in 2022, according to the city’s latest budget.

However, making that calculation is complicated by discrepancies in the crime data that the city of Sedona publishes. SPD does not issue an annual report, so crime statistics have to be compiled from other city documents, and there are significant variances among the numbers that appear in different official publications.

Crime Forecast

According to the estimated figures for Fiscal Year 2022 that SPD submitted to the city, which were included in the fiscal year 2023 budget as workload indicators, SPD made 366 misdemeanor arrests, 112 felony arrests and 478 total arrests in 2022, as well as writing 1,246 citations. These numbers represent a small increase from the 464 total arrests made and 1,065 citations written in 2021, according to the city’s 2023 budget.

In fiscal year 2023, SPD expects to make 460 misdemeanor arrests, 120 felony arrests and 580 total arrests and write 1,800 citations. These numbers represent a 25.7% increase in misdemeanor arrests, a 7% increase in felony arrests, a 21.3% increase in total arrests and a 44.5% increase in citations written since 2022.

Sedona’s population decreased from 10,031 in 2013 to 9,684 in 2020, and the Chamber of Commerce and city of Sedona staff currently expect the number of tourists visiting Sedona in 2023 to decline as well.

SPD did not respond to a request to explain why it expects arrests to rise by 21% in 2023 while both population and tourism are falling.

Data Disparities

The arrest statistics that appear in the city’s budget documents contradict both themselves and the statistics published in the city’s 2021 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report.

The 2023 budget lists the figures of 580 total arrests and 1,800 citations as predictions for both 2022 and 2023 — alongside the preliminary estimate of 478 arrests and 1,246 citations actually made and written in fiscal year 2022.

Turning back to the 2022 budget, that document gives the same projected figures for 2021 arrests and citations — 478 and 1,246, respectively — that were presented as preliminary estimates of actual arrests and citations for 2022 in the 2023 budget.

The 2023 budget also gives identical arrest data for 2021 and 2020, stating that 464 arrests were made and 1,065 citations written in both years, which would have a low probability of occurring. The 2022 budget, by contrast, gives these as the actual figures for 2020, compared to 431 total arrests made and 931 citations written in 2019.

Furthermore, all of these numbers contradict the 2021 CAFR, which states that SPD made 283 arrests in 2021, 340 arrests in 2020 and 301 arrests in 2019.

In addition, SPD’s 2023 crime predictions are out of line with its preliminary data for the year. According to the four monthly updates [August, September, October and November] that SPD has posted on the city’s Facebook page during fiscal year 2023, officers made 107 total arrests and wrote 513 citations during those four months. At this rate, SPD is on track to make 321 total arrests and write 1,539 citations in 2023 — 44.7% and 14.5% less than it predicted, respectively.

“The 2021 and 2020 arrest data was a typing error,” said Sgt. Michael Dominguez of the SPD. He did not clarify what the correct numbers were, nor why the same typing error was repeated in multiple years.

These discrepancies may arise in part from technical problems within SPD.

“We have also updated our CAD/RMS in mid-2018 from New World to the Spillman,” Dominguez said. “These systems do not communicate and obtaining relatable data between the systems is not possible.”

Historical Context

Data from Sedona’s annual financial reports indicate that the high point for criminal activity in Sedona’s history was 2007, when SPD made 662 arrests, closely followed by 2009 with 652 arrests and 2004 with 643 arrests. Arrest rates in Sedona have declined substantially since 2009, which was the last year SPD made more than the 580 arrests it is currently predicting for 2023. The last year in which SPD made more than 500 arrests was 2011.

According to CAFR data, arrests in Sedona averaged 589 per year from 2004-2009, compared to 360 arrests per year for 2016-2021.

CAFR data on traffic violations suggests that a similar decline has occurred in the number of citations being written by the SPD. From 2004 to 2017, the city averaged 2,724 citations per year, a representative number apart from the anomalously high years of 2008, 2015 and 2016. The present rate of 1,464 citations per year, if accurate, represents a drop from the previous average.

Beginning in 2018, the CAFR data no longer includes the number of traffic citations written, but only the larger number of traffic stops made.

The number of citations issued for parking violations has undergone a change in the opposite direction. From 60 parking tickets written in 2004, the number rose to 195 in 2010, the first year it broke three figures. By 2017 it had climbed to 728. During the following year, 2018, SPD issued 2,819 parking tickets, and in 2021, it issued 3,336 parking tickets.

“In 2008, 2015 and 2016 we did have traffic enforcement grants, which may account for higher traffic violation enforcement,” Dominguez said. “In 2018, we implemented a parking management system, which would most likely be the cause of higher violation numbers.”

The city installed parking meters in Uptown in early 2017, which were activated on June 28, shortly before the start of fiscal year 2018.

Cost of Arrest

The SPD’s budget, which decreased from $7,270,387 in 2020 to $6,671,621 in 2021, subsequently rose to $8,016,488 in 2022 and $8,910,530 in 2023 — an increase of 33.6% in two years.

These figures are for the SPD’s operating budget and do not include sums budgeted for improvements to police infrastructure, which the city accounts for separately as capital improvement projects. Over the past four years, these sums totaled an additional $2,068,658, including:

• $451,115 for radio equipment upgrades
• $1,451,054 for police station remodeling
• $166,489 for shooting range improvements

Based on the SPD’s operating budget only, without including the cost of capital improvements, the average cost per arrest in Sedona was:

• $4,299.87 in 2009
• $10,823.85 in 2014
• $23,114.44 in 2019
• $21,383.49 in 2020
• $23,574.63 in 2021
• $16,770.90 in 2022 [based on the FY23 budget estimate of 478 arrests in 2022]
• $27,758.66 in 2023 [based on extrapolating FY23 arrests to date]

According to the city’s 2023 budget, Sedona collected $214,738 in fines in 2019, $181,052 in 2020 and $360,370 in 2021; estimated it would collect $296,840 in 2022; and budgeted for collections of $303,690 in 2023.

The Sedona Municipal Court’s fine schedule specifies a minimum fine of $165 for a violation of Arizona Revised Statute §28-873, which covers parking prohibitions, suggesting that SPD collected at least $550,440 in parking fines for the city during 2021.

The municipal court’s fine schedule also specifies minimum fines of $180 for a broad range of traffic citations, climbing to $543 for the most serious offenses, suggesting that SPD collected at least $191,700 in traffic fines for the city during 2021.