Most of the state's political attention is on this week's special election to raise the state's sales tax by 1 percentage point or on the latest development in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate.
However, folks may want to start paying a little of that attention to matters closer to home.
Specifically, the municipal budget process.
Most cities and towns in AZ are finalizing their FY2011 budgets and are holding hearings to publicize their proposed revenues and expenditures for the coming year.
- On Tuesday in Scottsdale, the City Council will hold a public hearing on the budget proposal and proposed rates and fees during its regularly scheduled meeting (full agenda here). Also on the agenda: proposed changes to the City's charter to be offered for voter approval in November. Some interesting proposals here, but I'll cover those in a separate post closer to the election. The City's budget resource webpage is here.
- On Thursday and Friday, Tempe's City Council will be holding a number of mostly budget-related meetings.
After Thursday's regularly scheduled Council meeting (agenda for that here), they will be holding a meeting of the Rio Salado Community Facilities District Board to consider the tentative budget and assessments for the district.
On Friday, the Tempe City Council will be holding a budget workshop. The agenda for that includes discussion of "budget balancing" proposals for the City's Golf Fund, Performing Arts Fund, Transportation Fund, and Transit Fund (more layoffs coming, folks) and a discussion of the City's Capital Improvement Plan follow up.
Look for similar meetings in the other cities and towns in AZ shortly, if they haven't taken place already.
While the antics of the state legislature and governor garner more press (and notice from the likes of me), what our City Councils are doing has a far more direct impact on our day-to-day lives, and deserve at least as much attention.
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