City of Yuma proposes $500 million budget for fiscal year 2022

CBS 13's April Hettinger discusses how it will save taxpayers some money

YUMA, Ariz. (KYME, KECY) - Some big bucks are going into improving the City of Yuma. More than $500 million, that is.

The City of Yuma is pulling all of its saved money together to come up with a budget that is more than double Fiscal Year 2021, and it includes a big bonus for taxpayers in city limits.

City Administrator Philip Rodriguez outlines the debt they will pay off when the new fiscal year begins in July.

"We traded in an interest rate of about 7.3% for an interest rate of about 2.3%, and that saved our taxpayers $72.2 million in savings," Rodriguez explained. "We're going to pay that right when the new fiscal year starts."

The city will pay off over $100 million in debt. The money for the entire budget comes from property tax, sales tax, business licenses and funding from the American Rescue Plan Act.

"This budget, even though it's large this year, a lot of it is us catching up with some of the expenditures that we had to forgo in years previous," Rodriguez stated.

As the Foothills community is expanding, the city wants to grow the Desert Dunes Wastewater Treatment Plant, an $80 million project.

"I think that gives us a lot of opportunity for economic development and possible annexation because you have to have water to expand, and I think that doing this with our wastewater plant gives us a lot of future," said public commenter Gary Wright.

$88,000 will also go toward new technology for police worn body cameras.

Since the east side of town is expanding, councilmembers feel it is necessary to build Yuma Fire Station 7 near 32nd Street and 8 1/E.

"We actually go out and we'll time how quickly it takes us to get from a station to a particular address, and we want to make those as minimal as we possibly can because sometimes there's just a couple minutes between life and death," Rodriguez explained.

City officials will refurbish over 60 miles of asphalt and are planning to build a new $7.8 million park called East Mesa.

The budget set to be approved after the council receives more public comment within the next two weeks. Any comments can be emailed to a city councilmember.