Mesa's debt grows as sales tax revenue falls

Sonu Munshi, Tribune

November 13, 2008 - 9:16PM

City Manager Chris Brady records an episode of Mesa Now Nov. 13, 2008, at the Mesa City Plaza.

Lisa Olson, Tribune

Mesa Mayor Scott Smith

With each passing month, the numbers aren't getting any better for Mesa.

GRAPHIC: Click to see sales tax figues

Sales tax revenue for September fell short by $900,000, compared to the projected $12.2 million, according to figures released Thursday.

That means Mesa has been in the red, so to speak, for all four months this fiscal year, for a total of nearly $5.4 million.

It doesn't bode well for the upcoming Mesa City Council discussion. The meeting, slated for Thursday, will be the first time the city staff officially presents its plans to deal with the falling returns to the city's general fund.

Job cuts are imminent.

Beyond that, City Manager Chris Brady and Mayor Scott Smith have made clear that Mesa will have to rethink and retool services it currently provides and which ones it can feasibly continue in the long term.

This isn't about just tiding over the next six months or till the end of the fiscal year, city leaders have been saying over the last several weeks now.

"It's going to be a look at how we approach things and figure out what we want to do as a city," Smith has said.

Compared to sales tax earnings collected in the same period last year, Mesa is short by $6.4 million or 12 percent.

As for revised revenue projections, Brady has said it's been hard to do that, because it's hard to know when the decline will ebb or flatten out. Mesa's budgeted sales tax revenue for this fiscal year is $147.2 million.

Meanwhile, there hasn't been much enthusiasm over a voluntary severance package the city recently offered to full-time and some part-time employees, with the exception of sworn police and fire personnel.

Employees taking that offer would get two weeks of pay, as well as one weekof pay for every year they've been employed with the city for a maximum of 12 weeks.

But a few staffers say a tough job market means they'd rather wait and see the outcome of the budget cuts.