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E L E C T I O N? 2 0 0 6: Mesa Hones Budget Ax After Tax Defeat

Posted on: Thursday, 18 May 2006, 15:06 CDT

By Sarah N. Lynch and Brian Powell, The Tribune, Mesa, Ariz.

May 18--Marie Raymond's 11-yearold son tried to console her Tuesday evening while she watched on television as her job with the city of Mesa slipped away.

"We'll be OK," the boy told his mother as he gave her a hug.

But Raymond wasn't so sure. She had been told prior to Tuesday's election that she'd be one of dozens of city employees who would lose their jobs unless voters approved more than $72 million in new taxes.

The city had been counting on Mesa voters to approve two tax measures to bail it out of financial trouble. But now, because the property tax measure failed, according to unofficial election results, the city is scrambling to cut programs, services and staff in order to close a sizeable budget shortfall.

Raymond, a single 39-year-old mother of two, said she might have to sell her Chandler home to reduce expenses. She still has no idea where she'll go.

"I knew the property tax didn't have a chance of passing," Raymond said. "I was curious to see what would happen with the sales tax, but as I explained to my children, even when you know something bad is going to happen, it doesn't make it any easier when it actually does happen."

Come July 1, many other Mesa city employees will join ranks with the unemployed.

On Wednesday, City Manager Christopher Brady announced that 145 city positions will be cut as a result of the failed property tax measure. In all, 45 people, including 14 full-time and 31 parttime employees, will be laid off. Another 40 will remain employed with the city by moving into vacant staff positions, and another 60 unfilled positions will be wiped off the books.

Forty-two of the layoffs will come from the Community Services Department, which includes city libraries, two museums and parks and recreation. The remaining three layoffs will be out of the city manager's office and the Information Services Department.

Pink slips are expected to go out within a week, and all employees will be offered jobplacement assistance as well as a 45-day severance package, Brady said.

The news was disheartening, but not surprising to Yvonne Petersen. Like most other city employees, she had a feeling the property tax would fail. Now that it has, Mesa's historic Sirrine House will probably close and officially end her 10-year career there as a coordinator.

"I'm going to cry when I have to shut that house for the last time," she said.

Of all the individual cityfunded programs, the Arizona Museum for Youth is likely to lose the highest number of employees and is expected to see its hours cut in half. Sunnee Spencer, the museum's executive director, said 22 fulltime and part-time employees will be laid off. At the nearby Southwest Museum, seven people will be laid off, director Tom Wilson said.

The night before the cuts were announced, Mesa voters had approved a half-cent sales tax increase and rejected the city's first property tax in more than 60 years.

The voter-approved sales tax will raise a projected $42 million, roughly $25 million of which will be used for road improvements. The property tax would have raised an estimated $30 million next year, with a 2 percent increase in each following year.

Even with the money from the sales tax increase, the city estimates it will have to cut $11.3 million from next year's budget, in addition to $2.4 million in cuts already implemented. Brady said if sales tax revenue comes in stronger than expected, he will recommend the increase be placed in reserve or used to pay back debt, not to lower the existing deficit or to rehire employees. The City Council will resume budget talks Monday with the final budget adopted in June.

The cuts will affect not only Mesa employees, but organizations that benefit from city funding. The Mesa Community Action Network, a nonprofit that serves the city's poor and homeless, will meet today to discuss whether the agency will be able to remain open, said network board member Marty Whalen.

Also facing cuts are the adult arts classes at the Mesa Arts Center starting in the fall. Arts and Cultural director Gerry Fathauer said the city is continuing to negotiate with Mesa Community College with the hope it can teach adult arts classes starting in August.

The Mesa Unified School District had been mentioned as a possible funding option for some of the youth-oriented programs on the chopping block, including the funding of school resource officers. But district spokeswoman Kathy Bareiss said officials there are facing a double-whammy of uncertainty, since a large chunk of their annual revenue comes from a state budget that hasn't been finalized yet.

For some, the worst day was not Tuesday, but back in February when they were called into their supervisor's office, one by one, to learn their fate.

"It was a horrible day. There were tears and anger," said Daphne Clark, who will lose her job at the Arizona Museum for Youth, which she's held for 20 years.

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Tribune writer Blake Herzog

contributed to this report

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CONTACT WRITER:

(480) 898-6535

or slynch@aztrib.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Tribune, Mesa, Ariz.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Tribune

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