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Parks and Preserve leaders outline operating budgets, staffing and how Prop 4.90 proceeds will be spent
Summary
Parks and Recreation and McDowell Sonoran Preserve staff presented the operating budgets, explained major cost drivers and detailed how the voter-approved 0.15% parks and preserve sales tax (Prop 4.90) would be allocated across maintenance, improvements and program needs.
Nick Molinari, senior director for the Parks, Recreation and Preserve Department, presented high-level operating budgets for the department’s Parks & Recreation and Preserve divisions and explained how the new parks-and-preserve sales tax adopted as Proposition 4.90 shaped the requests.
The presentation matters because the council will use the commission’s recommendations to finalize the city’s budget and because Prop 4.90 revenue is earmarked by voters for specific categories — improvements, preserve maintenance, park maintenance, rangers and other set uses — that constrain spending decisions.
Mol inari said the combined department accounts for about 249 full‑time equivalent positions and gave the following FY 2025‑26 operating totals for the department as a whole: personnel services roughly $19.1 million, contractual services about $14.4 million, commodities $3.4 million and capital outlay about $500,000. He said the Parks & Recreation division alone accounts for roughly 239.47 FTEs and roughly $18.1 million in personnel services and $12.3 million in contractual services.
On the new sales tax, Molinari said the anticipated first‑year revenue is about $25.2 million and that the tax is allocated by ordinance so staff built requests to fit the required buckets: approximately 51 percent for park improvements (capital and non‑capital items), 18 percent for preserve maintenance and 14 percent for park maintenance, with smaller set shares for rangers and mitigation. Molinari said the 51 percent “improvements” bucket includes both master planning and some noncapital park amenities placed in the operating budget where allowed by the ordinance.
Commissioners asked specific questions about cost drivers, including contracted landscape maintenance, tree care and storm damage. Molinari said the department is steward for roughly 30,000 public trees and that contracted tree care and storm cleanup are major year‑to‑year cost drivers. He described a conservative approach for year 1 of the tax: “we are recommending a spending limit, an expense limit. So we’re anticipating that the costs are gonna be at or below these costs,” and that if projects cannot be completed in year 1 they will be carried forward to later years.
Mol inari identified several near‑term operating requests tied to the tax and the department’s master plan: bringing on a principal planner and an urban forester, funding design and planning for Agua Linda, Paiute, Chaparral, Vista Del Camino and El Dorado parks, $450,000 in landscape improvements identified for Chaparral, $200,000 for park cameras, and multi‑year capital allocations (roughly $11 million in year 3 and $13 million in year 5 for major park improvements). He said the year‑1 strategy will rely heavily on contractors to quickly address unmet maintenance needs while staff plan where permanent FTEs and equipment should be located. In year 1 the department plans to phase in four of the 17 positions identified in the master plan rather than hire them all at once.
Mol inari also gave line‑item figures the commission asked for: an overtime budget of $158,024.25 (parks overtime historically trends over budget due to storms and vacancies), an 11 percent increase (about $520,000) for the medians and rights‑of‑way maintenance contract, and roughly 459 acres of green space mowed plus nearly 800 acres of medians and rights‑of‑way maintained by the department.
Commissioners and staff confirmed how Prop 4.90 proceeds will be tracked in separate funds and reported annually: Sonya Andrews, city treasurer, said the ordinance requires the treasurer to report yearly how the funds are expended and that the proposed budget book includes separate fund pages showing planned operating and capital spending by allocation.
The presentation closed with commissioners emphasizing the need to be deliberate about the pace of hiring and the mix of contracted versus in‑house work to manage costs and deliver voter‑promised service levels.
Looking ahead, staff will continue detailed budgeting and return with more granular capital and operating line items as part of the city’s proposed budget and the commission’s review cycle.
