The Phoenix City Council met on March 18, 2025, to discuss the five-year Capital Improvement Program (CIP), the trial budget for fiscal year 2025-26, and to vote on a proposed increase to the Transaction Privilege Tax (TPT) and use tax. The meeting featured presentations from budget staff, public testimony, and council deliberation, culminating in an 8-1 vote to adopt the tax increase.
No consent calendar items were listed or discussed.
Second graders at Sun Valley Academy in South Mountain for Read Across America Day. It was one, it's actually one of the fun things that we get to do in this role. It was heartwarming to inspire young minds and encourage a love of readers. And I I recommend if you haven't done it to definitely read to our next generation. It is fulfilling in many ways. I also had the opportunity to travel to DC where I met with our congressional delegation as part of the NLC to advocate for important issues affecting not just District 8, but the City of Phoenix as a whole. These conversations are critical for securing resources and support for our community. Amongst the topics of discussion include our advanced water purification, our infrastructure needs, our public safety needs, housing and homelessness support, as well as the need to desire the desire that municipal bonds remain tax exempt as they serve as an important function for us in finance and tools. Next slide. Last night we had the pleasure of hosting our Logan Corby alongside Councilman Glenda Alvira. And I also want to thank the representatives from Parks and Recreation, Office of Homeless Solutions, Community and Economic Development, and our Phoenix Police Department, and to the residents who attended and received these updates and information from our presenters. We continue to do events like this because we want to ensure that our community remains informed. Next slide. If you have not already and you're interested in bringing a community event to light, and you need a little financial support, please submit the application by March 31st. Spread the word and don't miss this opportunity. And then last slide. Our community partners were recognized, including the Sagrata Galleria, Coel Sheller, and the Architectural Resource Team. And in particular, I want to highlight our 2024 heat relief plan, which took home one of the big awards of the evening. I'm proud of the incredible cross-departmental team that includes Office of Emergency Management, FIRE, Office of Homeless Solutions, Office of Heat Response and Mitigation, Libraries, and more who work to improve our heat efforts year over year. According to the County Public Health Heat Death numbers released that week, our increased efforts have resulted in the first decrease in heat related deaths in a decade. We still have a lot more work to do, but it is valuable to understand and track those numbers. In Phoenix, target we targeted extended hour cooling centers in our first ever 24 hour cooling centers in areas with the highest heat related emergency calls. We saw a reduction in heat related calls last summer as a result, despite record breaking heat. We've already been planning for this coming summer. At next Tuesday's policy meeting, we'll discuss the 2025 heat relief plan. I want to thank my colleagues on the city council for your leadership and commitment to the issue. And I'm proud our investments are delivering results and saving lives. Thank you to Jeff Barton, your management team, and all of the hardworking staff for your work to keep our residents safe and comfortable in our summer heat. Again, we got more work to do, but I am grateful to our professional staff for identifying important solutions and every year working to get better in that area. Lastly, I want to thank MAG, Maricopa County, and our partners community wide who support cooling centers and connecting residents with life-saving resources. Thank you. Any additional comments before we move to the next item? Great. Then I will we will go to agenda item one, and I will turn it over to our city manager Jeff Parton. We have several agenda items today, and we'll begin with the five-year capital improvement program. Mayor, members of the council, uh, good afternoon, and thank you for this opportunity. I'm going to turn it immediately over to our budget research director, Amber Williamson, and deputy budget research director Chris Fazio, who will walk you through our five our 11.5 billion dollar five-year capital improvement program. This is kind of like our roadmap and investments and infrastructure across the city over the next five years, which also I want to highlight includes the 500 million dollar GEO bond program that was passed by voters in 2023. Chris. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. The CIP is the city's infrastructure budget. The proposed program includes $11.5 billion across five years, including two and a half billion next fiscal year. Across all departments, the CIT CIP contains nearly a thousand projects, including the 2023 bond program. Breaking this down by funding source, 180 million dollars is proposed from the general fund, 387 million in geobonds, which is the balance of the 500 million dollar program, less what's anticipated to be spent through this fiscal year. 2.3 billion in special revenue funds such as highway user revenues, 2.8 billion dollars in enterprise funds like water and airport revenues, $3.3 billion in other bond funds such as water and wastewater debt, and $2.6 billion in other capital funds like development impact fees. To touch on the Geobond program in November 2023, voters approved four bond questions, totaling 500 million dollars. The preliminary CIP reflects the bond proje projects recommended by the Citizens Bond Committee that were presented to City Council in December 2022. At this early point in the program, we're not yet recommending any adjustments between projects. A detailed breakdown of the bond program projects is provided in Schedule 7 of the preliminary CIP document available online. The Phoenix.gov slash bond site will also periodically be updated with project status updates.