FY 2021 COUNTY BUDGET GUIDELINES AND PRIORITIES FINAL DRAFT.PDF

MARICOPA COUNTY 
FY 2021 Budget Guidelines and Priorities 
For Consideration by the Board of Supervisors on January 15, 2020 
 
The purpose of these guidelines and priorities is to provide direction from the Board 
of Supervisors to Elected Officials, the Judicial Branch, the County Manager, the 
Budget Office and all departments so that they can develop a sustainable, 
structurally-balanced budget that achieves the County’s mission and strategic 
goals as set forth in the Maricopa County Strategic Plan within available resources. 
 
Property Taxes 
After consideration of all long-term pension contribution obligations and state 
mandated payments, it is anticipated the primary property tax rate will remain 
unchanged for FY 2021. 
 
Other Major Revenue Source Assumptions 
The base budget will assume the forecast values from the County’s economic 
consultants for State-Shared Sales tax, State-Shared Vehicle License tax, and Jail 
Excise Tax revenues.   
 
Employer Retirement Contribution Funding 
The base operating budget will be adjusted to fund the change to retirement 
expense based on the annually computed contribution rates determined by the 
retirement plans’ actuary.  No decisions on other budget requests will be made 
until after resources have been identified to support the employer’s retirement 
contributions and any increases thereto.   
 
Employee Compensation 
Human Resources is directed to develop a targeted employee compensation 
strategy which may include pay for performance, and a focus on retention and 
service delivery.  Any compensation strategy will be contingent on an evaluation 
of economic conditions and funding challenges, including additional burdens or 
cost shifts from the State of Arizona.  
 
Budget Requests 
1) Base budget requests for all departments and funds should allocate resources 
to fulfill departmental mandates and should be prepared within baseline 
amounts equal to the current budget plus authorized adjustments.   
 
The Budget Office is directed to review and/or adjust budget baselines for the 
following: 
 
a) The annualized impact of FY 2020 budget issues or mid-year adjustments. 
b) The annualized impact of other items, including intergovernmental 
agreements and operational cost of technology initiatives, which were

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approved by the Board of Supervisors, so long as the impact was disclosed 
at the time of the initial Board approval. 
c) Items required by State law, such as judges’ and elected officials’ salary 
increases and mandated contributions to AHCCCS, ALTCS, Juvenile 
Corrections, the Department of Revenue and other mandated programs. 
d) The annualized impact of mid-year base rate changes funded from FY 2020 
Pay-for-Performance funding.  All one-time lump sum amounts from the 
FY2020 Pay-for-Performance funding will be reversed in the department’s 
budget baseline. 
 
2) All departments must submit their General Fund and Detention Fund base 
expenditure budget requests within their baseline budget unless otherwise 
provided for in these guidelines.  No funding will be available for new or 
expanded programs in the General or Detention Funds.  There will be no 
process for Board of Supervisor approval to review any requests above 
baseline which were not previously disclosed during a presentation to the 
Board of Supervisors.   
 
Budgeted revenue in any fund may exceed baseline amounts if justified by 
projections. 
 
Special Revenue Fund budget requests may exceed baselines, provided 
revenue projections are sufficient to retain structural balance.   
 
If the current revenue baseline in a Special Revenue fund cannot be met, 
departments must reduce both base expenditures and revenue by an amount 
sufficient to restore structural balance. 
 
3) Where a request for additional General or Detention funding in order to meet 
mandated services has been identified and quantified by a department during 
a presentation to the Board of Supervisors, the requesting department may 
submit a supplemental funding request on the supplemental budget forms 
provided by the Budget office.   
 
The budget submission date for both the baseline and supplemental budget 
request for departments with a supplemental funding request will be no later 
than 2 weeks from the adoption of these guidelines to allow for an adequate 
review of both existing resources as well as the supplemental request. 
 
4) All budget submissions will be analyzed by the Budget Office for potential 
efficiencies. 
 
User Fees 
Per the Budgeting and Accountability Policy, user fees are to be reviewed annually 
in conjunction with the budget development process.  Existing user fees will be re-

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evaluated and necessary changes should be presented to the Board of 
Supervisors.   
 
Contingency, Reserves and Fund Balances 
The Budget Office is directed to provide a recommendation for the reserved and 
unreserved levels of operating contingency in the General Fund. 
 
In accordance with the Board of Supervisors’ strategic goals regarding structural 
balance and reserves, fund balances will first be used to maintain reserves equal 
to two-months of prior year operating expenditures in the General and Detention 
funds.  A decision on reserve levels will be made prior to allocation of General or 
Detention fund balances for any other purpose. 
 
No requests for new non-recurring, one-time General or Detention funds will be 
entertained, unless they were 
 identified and quantified during a presentation to the Board or were part of 
a previous Board approved initiative and disclosed at the time of the 
Board’s approval of the initiative and  
 are necessary to meet mandated services. 
 
In accordance with the Board of Supervisors’ strategic goal regarding structural 
balance, requests to use Special Revenue fund balances should be limited to 
either building reserves or one-time, non-recurring expenditures and should not be 
used to offset an operating deficit.  Any use of fund balances and other non-
recurring sources to support an operating budget deficit must be specifically 
approved by the Board of Supervisors. 
 
Expenditure Limitation 
Increases to expenditures will be evaluated for their impact to the County’s 
Expenditure Limitation as outlined in the Arizona Constitution Article 9 Section 20 
and Arizona Revised Statute 41-563.  To mitigate the impact of expenditure 
increases on the expenditure limitation, financing will be considered where there 
is an established, conservative repayment plan. 
 
Capital Improvement Program 
No funding will be available for General and Detention funded new capital 
improvement projects until reserve decisions have been made by the Board of 
Supervisors.  Requests for Facilities Capital Improvement or Information 
Technology projects will be reviewed using a process defined by the Facilities 
Management Department or the Office of Enterprise Technology.  Only projects 
identified during a budget presentation to the Board of Supervisors will be 
considered as part of the Facilities Management Department or Office of 
Enterprise Technology review process.  Projects prioritized as part of this review 
process will be forwarded for consideration by the Board for funding within 
available resources.

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The Transportation Department will work with the Budget Office to develop an 
updated Transportation Capital Improvement Program budget for FY 2021 that, 
within available non-recurring resources, meets the strategic goal of developing, 
identifying funding, and beginning to implement a long-range plan for addressing 
HURF funded projects and transportation infrastructure needs.