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Moab's budget workshop: revenues trending up; staff propose salary freeze and prioritized capital work
Summary
At a March 10 public budget workshop, finance staff reported higher year-end revenues, proposed a two-year salary freeze for highly compensated employees to save roughly $300,000, and detailed water and sewer capital needs and public-safety costs including pass-through grant shifts and equipment reclassifications.
Moab's first public budget workshop for fiscal-year 2027 opened March 10 with an overview from city finance staff describing stronger-than-expected revenues and conservative planning assumptions for spring events. Staff said resort- and sales-tax collections have trended above last year since November and noted a $1.2 million RAP-tax transfer earlier this fiscal year with an additional $248,000 collected since.
Finance staff proposed a two-year salary freeze for highly compensated positions to slow compounding wage growth. "We will save somewhere around $300,000 by doing this," staff said, adding that compounding savings could reach roughly $1 million over five years if the measure stayed in place.
Water and sewer department leads reviewed enterprise budgets and capital needs. The requested water budget reflected an increase mostly from salaries, benefits and depreciation; staff moved master-plan work into capital and added overhead charges the enterprise funds pay to the general fund. Capital priorities include tank maintenance and painting, SCADA upgrades and design work for a new water tank. At the water-reclamation facility, staff explained high line items for sludge-hauling tipping fees, polymers and lab testing required for operations.
Public-safety staff presented a budget that includes large pass-through items for anticipated grant-funded traffic shifts and event security that inflate the department's gross total but are offset by matching revenue. Staff reclassified subscriptions into a higher professional-and-technical category to better reflect major contracts (e.g., Motorola/Spillman record system, body-camera fees, Axon). After removing pass-throughs, staff said the police department's operating request was about a 3.5% increase, driven largely by personnel and benefit costs.
Councilors asked about benefit-load fluctuations and the drivers of specific line-item increases; staff noted that benefit amounts can change due to employees' insurance status and promoted efforts to standardize line-item categorization across departments going forward.
Staff said this workshop is informational; no action or budget adoption was requested at the meeting. The city will hold follow-up budget workshops and return with draft budgets and recommended salary and fee schedules in April.
