Alt30 · Municipal fiscal brief
City of Mesa
FY 2025-26 · prepared September 19, 2026
Strategy
Aligned
The core question — does the spending fit the strategy?
Mesa is coherent: a capital orientation that fits a growing trajectory, funded from a base that can carry it.
Orientation fits direction?
AlignedGrowing +15% and building ahead of residents — a capital lean is what a growth trajectory calls for.
Tax strategy funds it?
AlignedThe capital lean is funded from a self-reliant, diversified base with the property lever active — the tax strategy supports the spending strategy.
$2.79B
Adopted budget, all funds
$740.5M
General Fund
Growing
Trajectory (+15% 2010–20)
Forward outlook · recurring revenue base
On current structure, City of Mesa's recurring base runs from $469.3M (FY2026) to about $566.8M by FY2031 — with 45% state-shared and no operating property tax to steady it. Near-term Urban Revenue Sharing is fixed by taxes the state has already collected; the later years rest on stated assumptions.
Key findings
Nearly half the operating base is state-shared
State-shared revenue is $209,370,025 of $469,271,691 in recurring General Fund revenue. Urban Revenue Sharing — 18% of the state income tax on a two-year lag — is the largest single piece and, at roughly $108.8M, the biggest URS distribution in Arizona. See the fiscal-trajectory tool for what a state income-tax change does to it.
No operating property tax
Schedule B prints N/A for the primary levy: Mesa is the largest U.S. city that levies no operating property tax. It does levy a secondary tax ($44,337,000, rate 0.8582) — but that is restricted to bond debt service, not operations. So sales tax and state-shared revenue carry the load property tax carries elsewhere, with no local tax to steady the base.
Public safety is the largest commitment
Police ($342.2M) and Fire & Medical ($174.0M) across all funds are Mesa's two largest departments — together the bulk of the budget. Both figures are the FY2025-26 Schedule F department totals.