Payson Town Council Special Meeting – FY 2024-2025 Tentative Budget & Strategic Plan – June 12, 2024
Payson Town Council Special Meeting – June 12, 2024
The Payson Town Council held a special meeting on June 12, 2024, to consider the tentative budget for Fiscal Year 2024-2025 and to approve the Corporate Strategic Plan. The Council approved both items by a 6–1 vote, with Council Member Susan "Suzy" Tubbs casting the lone dissenting vote on each. The meeting lasted from approximately 3:33 p.m. to 4:12 p.m.
Discussion Items
- FY 2024-2025 Tentative Budget (Resolution No. 3396): Town Manager Troy Smith and Finance Director Dana Ohanesian presented the proposed $106 million tentative budget. Smith emphasized that a municipal budget is a financial plan based on estimates, and the expenditure limitation must not be exceeded to avoid losing state-shared revenues. He noted that the budget reflects seven prior public meetings and council direction. Ohanesian reviewed one-time requests ($90,000), new personnel positions (five full-time and one part-time, totaling $507,000), ongoing enhancements ($340,000), and capital improvement projects totaling $54 million. A key point of discussion was the difference between the budgeted amount and actual expenditures; Smith pointed out that last year's budget was $77 million but actual expenditures were projected at $47 million, illustrating that the budget must be set higher than anticipated spending. He also addressed a resident's question about visible projects, explaining that many capital projects involve invisible planning and design phases before construction. The property tax levy rate was updated to 0.2992%, generating approximately $717,000 in revenue. Council Member Joel Mona spoke in favor of the budget, highlighting the town's strong financial position, top public safety services, reliable water supply, and numerous community assets. Council Member Scott Nossek echoed support and encouraged the public to review the town manager's remarks. Council Member Jolynn Schinstock expressed satisfaction with the increased funding for street projects.
- Corporate Strategic Plan: Hannah Lusk, Management Analyst, presented the proposed Corporate Strategic Plan (CSP). She explained the plan's three-level structure (Goals, Strategies, Action Items) and noted that Payson adopted its first strategic plan in 1995. The new plan uses Cleargov software for digital tracking and transparency. The CSP is aligned with the 2024-2034 General Plan draft and includes five goal areas (e.g., healthy environment, quality transportation, economic vitality). Lusk outlined next steps: council approval, inclusion in the FY25 Budget Book, publication on the transparency website, quarterly progress updates, and annual review at the start of each budget cycle. Council Member Mona commended the structure and increased accountability.
Key Outcomes
- Approval of FY 2024-2025 Tentative Budget (Resolution 3396): Motion by Council Member Scott Nossek, seconded by Vice Mayor Barbara Underwood. Passed 6–1. Yes: Mayor Chris Higgins, Vice Mayor Barbara Underwood, Council Members Brett Flaherty, Joel Mona, Scott Nossek, Jolynn Schinstock. No: Council Member Susan "Suzy" Tubbs.
- Approval of Corporate Strategic Plan: Motion by Vice Mayor Barbara Underwood, seconded by Council Member Joel Mona. Passed 6–1 (same vote tally). No: Council Member Susan "Suzy" Tubbs.
- Next Steps: The tentative budget and strategic plan will be incorporated into the final FY 2024-2025 budget. The strategic plan will be published online and updated quarterly.
Meeting Transcript
I'd like to call to order this special meeting of the Peace and Town Council. I'd like to uh start with the Pledge of Allegiance. Chief Harakala, could you please uh lead us in the flash of allegiance first, sir? Like this is why I didn't know. Thank you, sir. Sorry, I kicked it here. So the purpose of this meeting is for fiscal year twenty twenty-four, twenty twenty-five proposed budget discussion, possible action regarding resolution number thirty-three ninety-six, a resolution setting forth the tentative budget and establishing the expenditure limitation for the town of Payson for fiscal year twenty twenty-four, twenty twenty-five. Mr. Town Manager, please take it away. Number one, um, what is a municipal budget? It is a financial plan for the next fiscal year. It is based on estimates, projections, and things that we know and things that we don't know. And that's really important. The penalty for exceeding the expenditure limitation is a loss of state shared revenues. So it's critical that our budget number is set in such a way that it allows on an annual basis for the town for you as the legislative director of these finances to be able to deal with things both that we do anticipate and plan for and things that we could not possibly anticipate and plan for. And as a result of that, we can't exceed that expenditure limitation number. Uh that number gets set with some degree of uncertainty that is involved with it. It doesn't mean that the town intends to spend all of the money that it puts forth in its annual budget, and that is a very important distinction between a municipal budget and a private sector budget. Uh the budget that you will see tonight is the result of your work and your policy direction. You have held seven public meetings to date related to this budget and the contents of this budget. You've given me and staff direction about things you wanted to include, and and importantly, you have defined goals and priorities for the community. And my goal in presenting this budget to you tonight is to ensure that the budget represents your direction and there is alignment with your goals and priorities. After we're done with the budget presentation, you will see our annual work plan, which is a brand new document that creates a nexus between the work that we will be doing as staff, your goals and priorities, and our financial plan. It is an incredible tool that will allow residents once you approve it to see the nexus between the work that staff is doing and the financial plan that you are adopting. And there will be progress reports on a quarterly basis that you will get and the community will get about our progress towards achieving those goals. So with those introductory comments, uh I will turn it over to Dana, our finance director, who will quickly run through uh the information which you have uh seen before. There are very few changes from our last two-day work session to get you to considering this resolution tonight. Thank you. And before we hand it over to you, Dana, I neglected to ask Michelle for a roll call. Is that the record so that all council members are present except for council member? Sorry about that. All right, thank you, Dana. Thank you, Mayor, Council members. Um as our town manager mentioned, this is a review of the 24-25 tentative budgets. We're working on getting the screen changed for you. Go ahead. Um proposed tentative budget. Um tonight, what we're going to cover, we're going to look at uh some of the items that we covered in the May and the March meetings, uh, which include the one-time expenses, new personnel requests, ongoing enhancements, um, some of the capital improvement projects. Um, we're gonna review a uh the tax levy rate update, um, although there's no action uh today on that, and then we're gonna review the major funds and look at a comparison to the major funds with the uh last year's budget. Um can all everybody see the one-time requests uh this should be a review of um a slide we had in the uh budget workshop. It just lists the uh one-time requests that the council approved for 90,000. Um I don't know if everybody can see all the different pieces to what it was. Yeah, one-time requests, yeah. There we go, right there. And these are specific things that the council um approved at the workshops. Um we also uh brought forth new personnel requests and here is a list of the uh new positions, new positions that the council approved in that workshop. Um you can go down the list. There's uh five uh new full-time positions, uh, one part-time positions, and they total $507,000. Just a quick clarification if there weren't enough interruptions going on around you, Dana. On the previous slide, uh he mentioned one-time requests that council approved.
openpublica.com