Las Cruces City Council approved a total budget of just over $402 million dollars for the 2016-2017 fiscal year by a vote of 7-0.
Las Cruces’ budget includes funding for new positions throughout city departments, increases in salaries and benefits, and new vehicles. One of the main aspects of Las Cruces’ budget, the city’s general fund, totals around $88 million dollars, a 3.6 percent increase from the current year.
The budget is balanced and includes no tax increases, City Councilor Greg Smith says this a responsible budget.
“There are certainly some leaps in some of the numbers,” Smith said. “But we have gone through the process, done the work sessions, talked about it, and been assured that it all works, and actually I think that it’s a great time for this community to move forward with some things that we’ve known we need to do, but also make sure that we do it in a fiscally responsible way, and we’re doing that.”
Mayor Ken Miyagishima credits city management for being able to provide an increase in city services.
“Our management team, our finance team,” Miyagishima said. “They do such a great job in doing what we need to do to provide for those services at an increase without raising taxes.”
The budget also includes funding for 157 capital projects totaling around $148 million dollars, one of the largest capital improvement project plans in recent years.
Councilor Greg Smith says he is excited to see what the new projects will bring to the community.
“Something that I’ve worked on for a long time is getting phase two of the aquatic center,” Smith said. “Getting the Olympic sized pool included, and I do believe that’s going to be a great benefit to the community at so many levels. The other things have to do with, certainly, our ongoing efforts downtown, and other parts of town where we present ourselves as the community we want people to see us as.”
The budget is now sent to the state department of finance for approval for final adoption in June.
