Sales tax hike will help, but Mesa faces difficult decisions

Mesa voters showed Tuesday they want their community to succeed, and they aren’t interested in starving the city budget or “punishing” city officials for spending decisions some residents continue to oppose.

Thus, Mesa voters have raised the city sales tax from 1.5 cents per every dollar spent to 1.75 cents, instead of forcing it to drop to 1.25 cents.

But Mesa voters still weren’t willing to break with 60 years of local history and impose a primary property tax.

Mesa will survive this outcome. New streets will be paved and older ones will be repaired. Police officers and firefighters will respond to emergency calls. The Mesa Arts Center will continue to host rising stars and well-known entertainers.

But the Mesa City Council faces some tough choices when it meets next week to start preparing a new budget that must shrink by up to $11 million. The council should move ahead with a list of cuts already proposed by City Manager Chris Brady that would permanently reduce spending, and not look for ways to raise a little cash that would only postpone the inevitable. These proposed cuts include fewer operating hours at two museums and two libraries, less programming on Channel 11, no more subsidies to arts classes or Stageworks children’s theater, and the loss of public landscaping across the city.

However, the council isn’t bound by Brady’s list, and we believe there are at least two exceptions to consider.

The city’s park rangers perform public safety duties that wouldn’t be replaced by Mesa police. The council should look elsewhere to save $244,877 instead of eliminating these positions.

And the city shouldn’t completely abandon the downtown parades, holiday lights and other cultural events that can bring an entire community together. Someone should be assigned to seek out donations to revive some of those activities, even if that requires the expense of a part-time salary.

Finally, the council shouldn’t retreat from its plans to offer a bond package to voters later this year that would be funded with a secondary property tax. We suspect at least some people who rejected a property tax Tuesday will regret that decision as they watch additional budget cuts ripple through the community. Others might be more inclined to support a secondary property tax tied to a specific purpose and a specific lifespan.

Besides, Tuesday’s election campaign was the first concerted effort in quite some time to educate Mesa residents about the evolving local economy and demographics, and their related impacts on the city budget. It just might take more time for much of the information and debate provided to voters to really sink in.