Snowflake reviews tentative FY24-25 budget that includes proposed raises to retain staff

Snowflake town staff presented a tentative fiscal-year 2024–25 budget at a March 5 worksession, proposing annual employee adjustments of “5% or $1.50 each year” to keep pay competitive and maintain staffing levels, Town Staff member Brian Richards said.

The proposal matters because it sets salary baselines and affects department line items across the budget. "We’ve been trying to give 5% or $1.50 each year to keep employees happy and on average with salaries in the area and other similar communities around Arizona," Richards said, describing the tentative highlights he distributed to council members.

Mayor Byron Lewis said the increases have had an operational effect for public safety. "Since we’ve been giving raises to our PD we’ve been able to retain officers instead of worrying about losing them to other departments in the area," Lewis said, linking raises to officer retention.

Richards supplemented the staffing discussion with budget context, providing percentage breakdowns for expenditures and revenues to help council members evaluate line items. Council member Cory Johnson asked whether Snowflake should share more services with nearby Taylor as a cost-saving option; Richards responded that the towns already share many services and that Snowflake keeps separate the services that would be difficult or not worthwhile to merge.

The worksession was described by staff as an opportunity to establish salaries and baselines for departments and line items. The meeting adjourned with no formal vote on the budget recorded in the transcript.