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Flagstaff committee weighs $17.6M tier-one capital, sales tax and water-fee options to fund public safety
Summary
A Flagstaff City budget committee reviewed department priority tiers that include $17.6 million in tier-one capital over 10 years, discussed funding options—bonds, a sales tax and a water resource fee—and asked staff for cost-by-tier funding scenarios and polling guidance ahead of next week’s meeting.
The Flagstaff City Budget Committee on Thursday reviewed a tiered list of departmental requests that staff say includes about $17.6 million in tier-one capital needs over 10 years and discussed how to pay for public-safety and infrastructure priorities.
Shannon, a staff presenter, walked committee members through the spreadsheet showing 10-year totals and per-year averages, explaining that each line shows personnel (P), contracts and commodities (CC) and capital (CA) as 10-year sums. “For instance, this emergency management current ops, it’s 3 million over 10 years, 326 per year,” Shannon said, illustrating how the document breaks out costs.
The committee’s discussion centered on three funding paths: general-obligation bonds for capital, a voter-approved sales tax for ongoing expenses, and targeted fees such as the city’s water resource infrastructure protection (RIP) fee. Staff said a 1% sales-tax increase would generate roughly $30 million a year and flagged that the RIP fee currently brings in about $1.27 million per year and could be raised from roughly $0.53 per unit to about $0.80 per unit to cover wildland fire needs across all tiers.
Committee members and staff debated how to package asks for voters. Several members urged separating wildfire funding from other items—council and staff noted wildfire remains highly salient for residents and could be easier to sell if framed separately. One member said isolating the wildland ask might simplify the ballot question and outreach effort.
Members also discussed sequencing: whether to put a sales-tax question on the ballot first, followed by a bond later, or to bundle measures. A common practical concern was timing: capital (vehicles, stations) and staffing must be considered together so voters do not approve equipment without the personnel to use it, or vice versa.
On outreach, staff said the city has engaged a polling firm and planned a community survey and online materials to guide messaging. The firm can test a range of scenarios—percentages for a sales tax, and straw-man bond sizes such as $30–$40 million—to identify thresholds that are marketable to voters.
For next steps the committee directed staff to produce a tighter set of deliverables for the next meeting: a tier-by-tier breakdown showing which costs are bond-eligible, tax-eligible or grant-eligible; the taxpayer impact of illustrative packages (staff offered a $40 million bond plus a 0.25% sales-tax straw man as one example); and a refined RIP-fee calculation tied to average water use. Staff said they would try to deliver the tier cost calc by the next Tuesday ahead of the following meeting.
No formal vote was recorded; the session ended with staff confirming the committee’s request for more detailed modeling and polling guidance.
What happens next: staff will return with the requested cost-by-tier eligibility analysis and polling results to inform a recommendation to City Council and possible ballot language later in the process.
