Gilbert looks to boost spending, add employees

A proposed budget that Gilbert officials rolled out this week would boost ongoing general-fund spending by about $2.6 million in fiscal 2015 as the town adds 11 full-time employees across all departments.

The Town Council had its first chance to review budget requests at an April 15 study session during a presentation by Budget Director Dawn Irvine.

Officials plan to bring the proposed budget back to the council at another study session on Tuesday, May 13, and the spending package is scheduled for preliminary adoption on Thursday, May 15. Final budget adoption is set for Thursday, June 5.

The budget includes funding for the equivalent of 11 new full-time employees, including six positions in the Police Department. The town would hire two new police officers, two detention supervisors and two civilian patrol assistants.

Other personnel moves include adding an engineering technician for the Development Services Department and a part-time payroll assistant for Human Resources. Parks and Recreation staffing would decline by cutting about 2.5 full-time equivalent positions in aquatics while adding about one FTE for recreation leaders and fitness instructors.

The proposed budget also earmarks about $1.3 million for potential bonuses and some raises. That includes $300,000 for sworn public-safety employees' step-based compensation program and $1 million for a "performance management" incentive program across other departments.

Gilbert would look to continue addressing deferred maintenance items in fiscal 2015, which begins Tuesday, July 1, a trend that started last year with funding set aside to repair a recreation-center roof and make other park improvements.

Next year, officials propose spending $172,000 to make parking-lot repairs at town parks while pouring about $6 million into repair and replacement reserve accounts shared by town departments.

The general-fund budget allocates about $4.3 million in one-time expenses, including purchases needed to maintain service levels or implement innovative technologies, officials said.

The Fire Department would get $500,000 to replace cardiac monitors and $600,000 to replace its breathing apparatuses. Utility billing has asked for $200,000 to cover increases in credit-card costs, while the Town Clerk's Office budget includes $140,000 for the Town Council election this fall.

Gilbert's general-fund budget for the first time includes $137,000 to support the Gilbert Senior Center, replacing money that previously came from federal Community Development Block Grants. Council members last year said they would prefer to use CDBG money for infrastructure projects in low-income neighborhoods.

The Police Department would get $133,000 to help pay for "on-officer cameras" and $160,000 to boost services in the town's partnership with Mesa's crime lab.

"Currently, some of our fingerprint processing is taking us two to three years to get back from (Arizona Department of Public Safety)," Irvine said. "This would allow us to get those results back within a period of months instead of years."

The budget would also set aside $100,000 to pay for an update of Gilbert's redevelopment plan for the downtown Heritage District.

Gilbert officials want to budget about $29 million in operating funds for capital-improvement projects, including about $6.3 million from the general fund, which is primarily supported by local and state-shared tax revenue.

The town would spend about $3.3 million to relocate Fire Station 7, about $900,000 to replace aging playground equipment and almost $500,000 for pool repairs. Officials plan to spend $410,000 to upgrade the security system at town facilities and about $500,000 to make improvements to the urban lake at Cosmo Dog Park.

The single-largest capital expenditure listed for fiscal 2015 is a $10 million water-rights purchase with the White Mountain Apache Tribe, Irvine said.

Gilbert's tax revenue has continued to increase since bottoming out amid the Great Recession a few years ago, and the town is seeing higher levels of retail-sales-tax revenue than ever before.

Construction-related revenue continues to have a major presence in the town's revenue figures, however, and the town advises that money be used only for one-time expenses, Irvine said.