The Town Council has given its final approval for a $40.5 million budget for the 2016/2017 fiscal year that will begin July 1.

The council voted 5-0 to approve the plan at its June 2 regular session. Council Members Cassie Hansen and Alan Magazine were absent.

The budget includes $19.4 million for the general operating fund, $8.8 million for debt service and special revenue funds and $12.2 million for capital improvements.

The largest General Fund expenditures are for the town’s public safety contracts with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and Rural/Metro. Those total just over $7.6 million.

There is $3.5 million set aside for “general government,” $2.8 million for administration and $2.1 million for Community Services.

Staff has separated development services from public works which includes street and property operations. Together the two divisions are budgeted at $1.75 million ($830,000 for Public Works and $927,000 for Development Services.

Finance Director Craig Rudolphy told the council that it is going to become more and more difficult to balance the budget over the next several years.

Rudolphy projects a deficit of expenditures over revenue of about $636,000 for the 2017/2018 fiscal year. The deficit figures continue to increase through the 2020/21 fiscal year, which is as far as projections were made.

Capital projects

There are two major capital projects that have been budgeted and will be initiated this fiscal year. Those include the Fire Station #2 relocation project expected to cost $3.6 million, most of which will come from the town’s existing Capital Improvement Fund (CIP).

An architect has been hired and the new facility is currently being designed.

The second project will be the construction of the Preserve trailhead at the upper end of the Adero Canyon subdivision. This project is budgeted at about $2.3 million. Most of that money ($1.8 million) has been designated from development fees collected for Open Space improvements. The remaining $485,000 in the budget comes from the CIP fund.

The development fee revenues cannot be used for any other projects.

A number of people addressed the Town Council in support of the trailhead project and urged the council not to remove the funding from the budget.

Bill Myers, chairman of the McDowell Mountain Preservation Commission, thanked the council for including the work in the budget and implored them to keep the project in the budget. MMPC had hoped the trailhead would be budgeted last fiscal year and it was not.

“We want to be sure (the trailhead) stays in the budget as designed,” Myers said.

Jerry Butler noted that the trailhead is consistent with the Vision Fountain Hills goal of attracting younger families to live in the community.

Mayor Linda Kavanagh pointed out that the trailhead project was not removed from the current year budget. She said the decision was made not to budget the project because there would be no chance the work would have begun this year.

Construction on the trailhead cannot begin until a road is completed through the new subdivision, which, while currently under construction is not completed as of yet.

In a separate action the council also approved $126,127 for a professional services agreement with J2 Engineering and Environmental design to complete the final engineering and plans for the trailhead.