Following several month’s worth of meetings and plenty of tweaks here and there, the Sedona Fire District 2020-2021 budget is complete.
The SFD Governing Board approved the $18,795,507 budget during its meeting on Tuesday, June 16. The decision took less than 15 minutes to make but Board Secretary Corrie Cooperman was quick to point out that was because the budget had been discussed at several previous meetings.
“As this vote may be brief, it doesn’t represent any negligence on our part to review this budget very thoroughly and work with the chief and staff on it,” Cooperman said.
The approved budget is $1,136,437 — or 6.44% — more than the current year ’s budget, which ends June 30. The bulk of the increase, more than $500,000, is salaries and benefits. Salaries and benefits also make up the majority of the overall budget with total wage expenditures carrying a price tag of $9,083,878 and another $5,088,011 in benefits, which includes retirement funds.
In terms of revenues for SFD, $11,569,687 comes by way of Yavapai County property taxes and another $3,808,387 from Coconino County. Another $2.1 million is generated through insurance ambulance billings.
Board member Joy Moore said she was pleased with the process and praised staff for presenting a budget lower than what was originally anticipated.
“It’s because of all the hard work,” Moore said. “The chief looked forward and the staff looked forward and saw our needs and also saw things that didn’t need to be there.”
Board Chairman Dave Soto agreed that a lot of work went into finalizing the budget.
“We’re at a good spot in terms of what we have before us,” he said of the budget. “This is enabling us to achieve the goals that we have in our Strategic Plan and to move forward. There isn’t one item in this budget that was taken lightly. We reviewed every single aspect. I want to thank everybody involved with this for their hard work.”
