Pictured: The councils of Globe and Miami both adopted budgets for FY 2018-2019 last week.

The municipalities of Miami and Globe adopted fiscal year 2018-19 budgets last week, with each using the budget process to map a way forward and set priorities deemed crucial by city leaders for the next year.

While leadership in Globe went forward in a relative “business as usual” way, the Town of Miami heads into the fiscal year on the heels of its first positive financial audit in at least a decade.

Globe

The City of Globe’s budget for FY 2018-2019 weighs in at $22,572,055 and represents four month’s work by council and staff. Specific priorities for the next fiscal year include expanding economic development efforts; improving tax collections; creating “business-friendly policies”; increased blight cleanup; creating policies to improve staff retention, information technology (IT) and facility improvements as well as addressing infrastructure issues from streets to sewers.

To better address tax collections, the city will devote $24,000 to contract with a tax auditor and an additional $25,000 for a financial consultant.

In order to improve marketing and outreach, $10,000 has been budgeted for marketing studies, $1,000 for social media and a combined $16,500 for various networking and community events, as well as $25,000 to directly address blight issues throughout the city.

Following up on several discussions about an aging IT system, there will be a one-time $90,430 investment in technology, with $90,570 budgeted for ongoing costs.

But special in this year’s budget process was taking on the disbursement of $144,752 in bed taxes — funds collected through transient housing, i.e. hotels, motels, etc. — distributed to five nonprofit organizations dedicated to economic development throughout the Copper Corridor.

The move is an attempt to more clearly define its relationship with the “bed tax group” (see “City of Globe adds more stringent requirements to bed tax disbursements,” Silver Belt, July 25), as it struggles to find a marketing identity and create strategies to increase economic development through tourism, and attempts to lure businesses to the community and fill the many empty storefronts in downtown Globe.

“This is not a thumb [to keep them down] but a finger on the pulse,” Globe’s Economic Development Director Linda Oddonetto said. “When they succeed, we succeed and we hope to make good progress in the next year.”

Mayor Al Gameros stressed the relationship with each organization is a partnership and the new stipulations are not about control.

“These organizations need to understand it’s not about power,” he said.

The new rules stress financial accountability and the city will have a voting member on the executive boards of each of the organizations, the Southern Gila County Economic Development Corporation; Globe-Miami Chamber of Commerce; Globe Downtown Association; the Cobre Valley Center for the Arts, and the Gila County Historical Society.

The City’s general fund maintains a contingency fund of $1,435,783, with $130,454 added from current revenues.

Miami

The Town of Miami’s FY 2018-2019 $17 million budget comes on the heels of its first positive audit in at least a decade. All municipalities in Arizona must complete a yearly budget audit through the auspices of ARS 9-481.

The audit was completed last year by Colby & Powell, PLC, a Gilbert, Ariz.-based certified public accounting firm that has done Miami’s audits for several years.

At a recent town council meeting, a representative of Colby & Powell was on hand to praise the town’s administration for the audit, and that praise continued into the July 23 meeting when the FY 2018-2019 budget.

“It’s been 10 to 12 years since it’s happened, and it’s taken great effort by a lot of people,” Councilmember Susan Hansen said.

Hansen, who has chosen not to run for re-election in the upcoming election praised Taon Manager Joe Heatherly for the work, but Heatherly demurred, giving credit to his finance director Stacie Allison.

On the revenue side, the town anticipates $1.198 million from various taxes, fines and fees, and an additional $1.028 million in income from town services such as the Miami Senior Center, the library and Cobre Valley Transit.

There will also be additional funds coming from grants for projects like the ongoing sewer replacement and the road repairs that will follow the completion of that project, as well as $73,000 from Gila County to subsidize the transit system.

The biggest expenditures in the coming year will be for the sewer project, about $12 million, $671,553 for administrative costs, and $799,131 for the police department.