Tempe City Council Work Study Session – February 26, 2026
Tempe City Council Work Study Session – February 26, 2026
The work study session covered financial forecasts, capital improvements, the transportation plan update, subcommittee reports, and future agenda items. No formal votes were taken. Public comment was not received.
Discussion Items
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3A: Long-Range Financial Forecast – Presented by Lizette and Robert. Key points: Retail sales tax growth (9% higher than prior year; online retail up 19%) is insufficient to offset the loss of residential rental tax revenue. The FY2025 unassigned fund balance closed at 38%, exceeding the forecasted 35% due to higher revenues and lower expenditures. The forecast assumes no recession, and proactive budget balancing strategies (e.g., using reserves for public safety pensions and post-employment benefits, suspending some transfers) are in place. The general fund is projected to remain within the 20–30% fund balance policy through FY2029-30.
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3B: Five-Year Capital Improvements Program (CIP) – Robert Baer presented $2 billion in project requests. This first look is informational; no approvals were sought. The CIP document includes program summaries and project detail pages. Next steps involve determining available resources (bond capacity, staffing capacity) and scoring projects for prioritization. The recommended CIP will be presented in March.
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3C: Tempe Transportation Plan 2050 Update – Eric Iverson and Lindsay Post presented phase two findings. Public outreach reached over 30,000 people, with 400 survey responses received. Key survey results: 60% drive as primary mode, 37% want bicycle travel prioritized, 67% would walk more with more shade, and 52% said low-stress bike routes would encourage biking. Needs analysis identified high injury networks, transit frequency gaps, and pedestrian crossing challenges. The public survey remains open through March 18. Phase three (recommendations and prioritization) will begin in March.
Subcommittee Updates
- Age-Friendly Tempe (Vice Mayor Garland): Work completed; final draft action plan to council on May 4 for approval. Subcommittee will be closed.
- Animal Welfare and Cruelty (Councilmember Hodge): Next meeting March 6 at 2 PM at City Hall.
- Community Engagement and Connection (Vice Mayor Garland): Focus groups ongoing; no meeting in March; next meeting in April.
- Drink Spiking Education and Prevention (Councilmember Keating): Ordinance passed; subcommittee remains open for implementation support but will not meet unless needed.
- Federal and State Advocacy Review (Councilmember Amberg): Met February 20; next meeting March 24 at 12:30 PM.
- Mixed Use Space (Councilmember Chin): Scheduling initial meetings.
- Revitalization of Tempe Town Lake (Councilmember Amberg): Next meeting April 20 at 2 PM.
- Tempe Term Limits Policy Review (Councilmember Keating): First meeting to be scheduled in March.
Future Agenda Items
Councilmember Amberg requested an update on the Colorado River water compact expiration (deadline missed) and hydrology status. City staff agreed to provide an update at a future issue review session.
Key Outcomes
- Presentations on the financial forecast, CIP, and transportation plan were received without council questions or formal action.
- Subcommittee updates were acknowledged; some subcommittees concluded or are on hold.
- A future agenda item (Colorado River update) was added.
- The next work study session is scheduled for March 23, 2026. Meeting adjourned at 4:51 PM.
Meeting Transcript
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Temple City Council work study session agenda. Item number one is called to order council meetings. Can we watch in real time via Cox Cable Channel 11 and at Tempi.gov/slash Tempe11. Members of the public may also attend the meeting virtually through Microsoft Teams. Guidelines for conduct at City Council meetings are on the table near the entrance for those in attendance at tonight's meeting. We will now play a video with the proper protocol for ensuring the appropriate conduct at city council meetings. Disruptive behavior will not be allowed. Continued disruptive behavior will lead to removal from the council chambers. We need to be able to hear everyone in the room. Behavior that disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of any city council meeting is not helpful and is not permitted. This includes behavior both inside and outside of the council chambers. Should individuals inside the council chambers become disruptive so that city business is not able to be conducted. The mayor will first ask that the individuals allow city business to be completed. There will be time for public comment during the call to the audience portion of the meeting. If no cooperation, the mayor will issue a verbal warning and let them know that the continued disruptive behavior will lead to removal from the council chambers. If there is still no cooperation, the mayor will issue a second verbal warning and let them know that the continued disruptive behavior will lead to removal from the council chambers. If there is no cooperation after asking and two verbal warnings, then the mayor will ask security officers to remove only those individuals who were causing the disruption. Security personnel should not engage in any way, but only escort them from the council chambers. If individuals refuse to leave, security personnel shall warn them that they are trespassing, and that the next step will be arrest by a Tempe police officer. Tempe officers may have to arrest if individuals refuse to leave. Charges for trespass and disorderly conduct may apply, as well as other charges. Should anyone be asked to be removed? The mayor will recess the meeting. Thank you very much. Before we move into the call to the audience portion of the meeting, I want to take a moment to address campaign related activity, especially that we are now in the 2026 election season. City Council meetings are open to the public and are a vital form for civic engagement. We welcome all individuals, including candidates, to speak on matters of public concern during the public comment portion of the meeting. However, because this is an official city council meeting that is both televised and live streamed using city resources. Thank you for helping us maintain the integrity and neutrality of our public meetings. None received for this meeting. And I'm gonna see here. We're entering our second year, we're actually in our second year without supplementals, and also have only approved budget requests that have revenue offsets or expenditure offsets. Additionally, we um with the expenditure with the expenditure reductions we've implemented, all major funds are meeting their financial policies, so their fund balance targets. So we are seeing, particularly in the retail sales, some growth over the prior year. However, I want to be cautiously optimistic because the growth that we're seeing is not sufficient to offset the loss of residential rental residential rental tax. We are also closely monitoring the transit fund. We're ensuring that there's sufficient revenue in the fund to cover the to maintain the service levels that we currently have, and also to ensure that we have local match for the extension of the streetcar to Mesa and also for the pedestrian bridge on Rio Salado. With that, before I do that, lastly, I want to thank our budget team for all the work that they've done in preparing the presentation in front of you and the long range forecast. Specifically Scott Gruber, Kevin Di Dominico, and Venecia Benson. With that, I'll turn over the presentation to Robert to go over the first couple of slides. All right, good afternoon, Mayor and members of the councils. Today's presentation of the long range forecast directly aligns with the council strategic priority of financial stability and vitality. The goal is to maintain the highest general obligation bond rating by keeping the general fund within fund balance policy levels. The specific performance measures are 5.04 and 5.05. So I would like to just briefly review the public meeting dates for both the capital and operating budgets that we have. We've held our public forums and our online budget forum is open through March 1st. Today we are introducing the proposed capital projects along with the updated long range forecast. Then we have the initial recommended capital projects, which will be presented in March. We have two budget review sessions planned, one in April and another in May if needed.
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