FINANCIAL STABILITY provides proactive leadership and
considers all financial factors in order to diversify revenues,
bring new jobs to Mesa, create responsible budgets, and ensure
operational efficiencies.
When asked: “It's two years from now...what priorities and
key outcomes do you believe we should have underway or
accomplished for Financial Stability?” The Mayor and
Council’s original responses included:
- Broaden our
tax base
- Keep shared
revenue – seek advocacy/support from Mesa’s legislators
- Complete
implementation of CityEdge
- The secondary
property tax is levied on ALL outstanding bond debt.
- Landing new
business with lots of jobs for the area
- Protect shared
revenue
- Ask Mesa
businesses like Boeing and Allegiant to become more engaged in
sponsoring projects and organizations in Mesa
- Jobs, Jobs,
Jobs. As we focus on jobs, retail will follow in a natural
course
- Consider
lowering all the added fees that provide a fund transfer and
seek a property tax as the alternative
- Advertise the
Shop Mesa! message
- Have a primary
property tax dedicated to supporting police, fire and the courts
- Consider
primary dedicated tax for public safety
- Find a stable
source of revenue for public safety
- Bring business
to Mesa that will have high paying jobs
- Secondary
property taxes cover all bond debt
- Keep efforts
to be fiscally responsible to gain the confidence of the
community
- Grow the
economic base, attract new business
- Ask voters to
reinstate the tax on food
- Bring more
high tech/high wage jobs to Mesa
- No cuts from
public safety
- Put together a
"close the deal" account to help base industries cover cost of
moving to Mesa; would help us to compete with States like Texas
- Mesa gets away
from special taxes for special projects, i.e., transportation
taxes, quality of life taxes, public safety taxes
- Think about
business incubators
- Encourage
increased tourism
- Work with
citizens to see what they are willing to do to help provide city
services
- Look at
partnering with solar industry to put solar panels on city
buildings to reduce energy costs
- Land a second
Cactus League team.
- Push the State
Legislature to allow Tax Increment Financing Fund (TIFF)
- Use the
enterprise fund to innovate all of Mesa's assets, including Real
Estate assets, particularly around downtown
- Partner with
solar to use underutilized City space for solar (parking
garages, airport)
- Work harder to
challenge the same way of doing things even in the Enterprise
operations
- Continue
efforts to improve efficiency
- Inform the
residents to what it means to “Shop Mesa,” with real life
examples that people understand
- CityEdge must
be completed
- Reinforce the
“Shop Mesa” concept.
- Capitalize on
our existing recreational resources to attract even more tourism
- Find
innovative ways to make cuts without cutting people
- Seriously
consider additional outsourcing additional non-essential City
services
- Reutilize
Hohokam with second Cactus League team or other sport such as
soccer. Maybe turn it into a bull fighting arena.
- Promote
innovative ideas from ASU and Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) to
create new industries/jobs
- Attract more
college championships to Mesa as an alternative to Nevada and as
a more college student friendly environment
- Support
reasonable pension reform at the State level
- Continue a
look at privatizing services or at least hard comparisons for
services provided
- Actively
recruit international trade at Gateway Airport
- Reinstate
staff’s 2%
- Tax
Recreational Vehicles that come into the City
- Pursue more
cargo traffic at Gateway
- Have Police
take over towing contract
- Find a way to
recoup some Fire expenditures