TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Tucson Mayor and Council adopted a $2.4 billion dollar budget June 3 for the upcoming fiscal year.
The action marks the end of a months-long process that city leaders say started in a tough spot.
The city set the exact spending cap at $2,413,121,723 dollars. Out of that sum, only $750 million is in the general fund, meaning that's the number the city has to work with to fund core city services like police, fire, parks and anything else laid out in the city charter while paying for programs they believe will improve the city and it's residents.
City leaders say lack of revenue from the state, due to the flat income tax rate enacted by governor Doug Ducey in 2023, and economic confusion in the federal government, which caused a dip in city sales tax earnings made this year's budget process a little more complicated.
“My vision for the budget was to make sure that we’re providing community safety, health and wellness and a good quality of life for our community, knowing that we had to trim 18 million dollars off of the budget,” Mayor Regina Romero said.
Despite roadblocks, Romero says there's still a lot that she and the council are proud of, including preserving the KIDCO programming and buying new "day trucks" for Tucson Fire's medical calls.
Both fall under the umbrella of the top city priorities for the coming year: community and public safety, housing affordability, unmet capital needs and solutions for unsheltered homelessness, with Mayor Romero adding the final priority in study session before formally adopting the budget.
“We’ve got to make it a central piece of our work here at mayor and council,” she said.
Those priorities were included in Proposition 414— the half-cent sales tax increase proposed to voters in March— but after voter rejected the proposition, city leaders allocated about 15 million dollars to fund some of the projects from 414, many focusing on public safety.
“If someone calls 911 with an emergency, she said, "they need for our call takers and dispatchers to act quickly, so we’re hiring more dispatchers both in 911 and 311. ”
She says they also funded violence prevention efforts like VIVA, first responder equipment upgrades, and Housing First, a program under threat of extinction when 414 failed. It recently helped eleven former Job Corps students find temporary housing after moving out of Job Corps dorms.
the city's budget, they must plans ahead for the next several years. Romero says they're investing $80 million dollars annually into Tucson's streets over the next decade, fulfilling the stipulations of voter-approved Proposition 411.
“Our neighborhoods are super happy that we continue to do residential road work and road repair," Romero said. "That’s going to continue. We’ve only done 25% of the neighborhoods in our city.”
While they're looking at the next few fiscal years, Romero says they're expecting similar challenges to the ones they faced this year.
“It seems to us that the Trump Administration is going to keep cutting," she said. "We’re seeing the impacts but I don’t think we have seen the end of it.”
The new fiscal year—and, therefore, the new budget— goes into effect July 1. Romero says that's also when they'll begin planning outreach for the next fiscal year— FY2027. She says this allows for more time for community input.
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