Alt30 · Municipal intelligence
← MapFiscal trajectory · Arizona
Most municipal data reports where a town has been. This projects where its recurring revenue base is going on its current structure — and draws a hard line between the part already fixed by taxes the state has collected and the part that rests on a stated assumption. It is a conditional, not a prediction.
Show Low's recurring base grows to $38.8M by FY2031 — but rests on two legs, not three.
16.4% of the base is state-shared revenue — largely Urban Revenue Sharing, which is 18% of Arizona's income tax on a two-year lag. 83.6% is own-source, dominated by the city sales tax, which moves with the retail cycle. And Show Low levies no property tax — so there is no stable third leg to steady the base when the state economy or a state tax cut moves the other two.
$38.8M
projected recurring base, FY2031
16.4%
of the base is state-shared / income-tax linked
0%
property tax — the missing stabiliser
locked
FY26
set by taxes already collected
forecast
FY27–28
rests on JLBC's published estimate
projected
FY29–31
our stated growth assumption
This projects Show Low's recurring revenue base — not a surplus or deficit. Arizona budgeted expenditure authority includes contingency and fund-balance spend-down a town may never draw, so projecting spending off it would fabricate a gap. The base here is FY2025-26 budget, Schedule C — recurring General Fund, one-time grants removed.
The Urban Revenue Sharing line moves with the statutory pool — 18% of Arizona income tax, two years lagged (A.R.S. § 43-206) — applied to the town's own budgeted URS figure. FY2026 is locked: it is fixed by income taxes the state has already collected. The two years after rest on JLBC's published forecast. From FY2029 the income-tax base grows at a conservative 3.5% assumption.
Non-URS state-shared revenue grows at 3.0% a year (a conservative nominal pool rate, with the town's small population share held stable). Own-source revenue grows at 3.5% — the town's 1.0% decennial population growth plus 2.5% assumed inflation. Per-resident figures use the U.S. Census Bureau population estimate used for the FY 2024-25 shared-revenue distribution.
This is a conditional on those assumptions, not a prediction. It does not model a recession, an annexation, a new tax, or a change in state law — those belong to the scenario layer.
Scenario modeling
The baseline holds current structure and current law. These levers are the questions a council actually faces — a state income-tax cut, a downturn in retail sales, faster or slower growth, and, for a town without one, adding a property tax. Each is arithmetic from statute or the town's own figures, not a guess at what will happen.
State individual income tax
Flows to Urban Revenue Sharing on a two-year lag.
Add a primary property tax
Rate per $100 of net assessed value. The missing third leg.
City sales-tax cycle
Annual own-source growth. Baseline 3.9%; a recession is negative.
Population growth
Annual, per year. Baseline 1.4% (decennial trend).
Adjust a lever to bend Mesa's baseline.
Income tax changes flow only to Urban Revenue Sharing, and only to its individual-income-tax share, on the two-year statutory lag (A.R.S. § 43-206) — so a change modelled from collection year 2025 first reaches the budget in FY2027. Corporate collections stay in the pool, which is why even “eliminated” does not zero URS.
Add a property tax applies a rate per $100 to Mesa's net assessed value of $5,166,278,257, derived from its secondary levy and rate — a real base, not an assumption. The assessed base is grown at inflation.
Sales-tax cycle and population growth replace the baseline growth assumptions for own-source revenue and residents. Everything else follows the baseline method. This is a set of conditionals, not a forecast of which will occur.
Mesa's filing reports state-shared revenue as a single line, so the Urban Revenue Sharing portion is isolated using the League of Arizona Cities' published URS/state-sales/vehicle-licence composition for Mesa. That aggregate matches the League's three-stream total within 1.3%.