ABQ mayor’s $524M budget for 2017 does not raise taxes
Berry’s proposal would spend $18M on new construction projects
Mayor Richard Berry will propose an operating budget today that calls for setting aside enough money to launch $18 million in new construction projects and create a new “clean team” that targets graffiti and rundown properties in Albuquerque.
The budget also would fund pay increases for employees and plow an extra $3.5 million into the city’s self-insurance fund, which has shelled out $17 million over the last year settling three lawsuits filed on behalf of people shot by police.
The plan puts some Police Academy officers into the field by using more civilian trainers and opens the door to running a “lateral” academy class for law enforcement officers who want to transfer into APD from other parts of the state or country.
It does not include any tax or fee increases, though separate legislation will call for stiffer parking fines.
Altogether, Berry’s budget proposal calls for spending about $524 million on basic operations next year, about 2.7 percent
above this year’s spending levels. The growth outpaces inflation, which has been 1 percent over the last year, but it’s slightly less than the expected increase in revenue from gross receipts taxes.
The proposal now heads to the City Council, which has two months to amend or approve it. Changes are common.
“We’re giving them a good, solid foundation to work off of,” Berry told the Journal on Thursday.
City Councilor Isaac Benton, chairman of the council’s budget committee, said he hasn’t had time to review the proposal in detail yet.
“We’ll be looking at it very closely,” he said, and “we’ll have a lot of questions for the administration as we go forward.”
Capital spending
The budget continues a top priority under Berry — shifting more of the city’s resources back into construction and capital projects, in addition to basic operations. It reverses a trend from before he took office, when the city took property tax revenue earmarked for the bond program and used it instead to prop up operations.
Next year, Berry wants to set aside $1.5 million in the operating budget — enough to make the annual payments on $18 million in debt to finance new “quality of life” and “economic development” projects. That could mean building a new swimming pool in the far Northeast Heights, upgrading pools elsewhere or expanding the plans for a complex of baseball fields on the West Side, the mayor said.
The actual projects would be decided later, and it would take about 15 years to repay the debt.
The goal, Berry said, is to “do stuff that makes an impact for our community.”
The $1 million for a clean team would go toward covering up graffiti, pulling weeds at rundown properties and paying panhandlers to remove trash, an expansion of a current program.
“We need our main streets looking better,” Berry said.
‘Lateral’ hires for APD
The budget would cover the fiscal year that starts July 1. The mayor’s proposal includes:
$1.5 million to replace 34 police vehicles. That’s still not enough to reach the city’s goal of replacing about 90 police cars a year.
$414,000 to hire people under contract to train officers at the police academy, freeing up sworn officers there now to work in the community. That could provide as many as a dozen extra officers to help boost APD’s staffing levels, which have fallen about 25 percent since mid-2010.
The money could also allow the city to offer a “lateral” academy for officers from elsewhere who want to move to Albuquerque to work, the mayor said. They would go through an abbreviated academy, if the department determines they’re suitable candidates.
The city has faced criticism over the quality of officers hired from other departments in the past. Berry said the city would start hiring transfer officers again only after thorough vetting, and he pointed out that, unlike some cities, he was not proposing signing bonuses to boost police ranks.
$250,000 to boost staffing in the city’s 911 call center. The mayor also wants to add inspectors and plan-checkers in the Planning Department for about $522,000.
In the Animal Welfare Department, the city would add two animal-behavior specialists and continue its trap-neuter-return program for feral cats, at a total cost of $302,000.
$350,000 for a sporting event that would draw out-ofstate visitors and tourists to Albuquerque, a proposal he could not elaborate on at this time.
About $3.5 million to bolster the fund that pays legal settlements and similar liabilities. It’s part of a 10-year plan of putting about 10 percent more money than usual into the fund each year.
The city has paid tens of millions of dollars in recent years — $17 million in just the last 10 months — as a result of lawsuits against the police department, which has also endured a federal investigation and is now under a settlement agreement requiring reform.
Closing the Alamosa satellite library because a new library has opened nearby. The city would work with the community to find another use for it.
Pay raises
The budget has enough money to provide pay raises for employees.
The amounts would have to be negotiated with city unions, but the mayor said there’s enough to offer raises of 2.25 percent for firefighters, 1.5 percent for police officers and 1 percent for other employees.
Berry said police pay has increased more than 19 percent since he took office in late 2009. The base pay of most patrol officers climbed 5.9 percent this year after settlement of a lawsuit.
The budget is based on a projection that the economic activity that drives gross receipts taxes would increase about 3.9 percent. The city’s revenue from that source would climb only 2.9 percent, however, because of state tax breaks and other factors.