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Council hears Tyler Technologies presentation on priority-based budgeting; town to use FY26 data to prepare for FY27
Summary
Consultants from Tyler Technologies briefed the council on the town's priority-based budgeting rollout. Staff will score programs against the existing strategic plan, use FY2026 budget data as the baseline and aim to inform the FY2027 budget cycle and a November strategic-plan retreat.
Sahuarita staff and consultants from Tyler Technologies presented an overview of priority-based budgeting (PBB) to the town council on Sept. 8, describing how the town will translate its line-item budget into a program-level dataset and score each program against the town’s strategic priorities.
Tyler Technologies consultants said the town will implement PBB using fiscal-year-2026 budget figures as a working baseline so departments can prepare before the FY2027 budget cycle. The consulting team described a three-step process: (1) develop a program inventory (the services the town delivers), (2) allocate personnel and operating line items to those programs to calculate program costs, and (3) score programs for alignment with the town’s strategic plan and five program attributes (mandate, reliance, population served, cost recovery and demand).
Consultants emphasized the value of translating departmental budgets into program costs so the council can see how much the town spends on specific community priorities and to identify reallocation or revenue options. The Tyler team said they can use machine-learning techniques and a database of other local-government implementations to generate “insight reports” that suggest cost-saving or revenue-generating ideas used by comparable jurisdictions.
Staff told the council that the program inventory phase (rollout to departments) produced 123 operating programs and 31 capital projects and that cost-allocation review was expected to finish in late September. Program scoring was scheduled to begin Oct. 1 with predicted scores available later in October. The town aims to hold a one-day council retreat in November to revisit strategic-plan objectives and finalize scoring guidance before formal FY2027 budget work.
Council members asked how success would be measured. Staff said outcomes include the ability to show the cost to deliver each program, identify possible reallocations or revenue sources and produce a visual portfolio of programs (a matrix showing program cost, size and alignment to priorities). Consultants and staff said the effort is intended to improve transparency and make future budget decisions more data driven.
The town’s Parks & Recreation director and finance staff said they view the schedule as achievable and told the council they expect the PBB baseline and insights to be ready for department use before FY2027 budget preparation.
