By Gary Nelson | The Arizona Republic
Blink your eyes, a decade passes and a city changes forever.
That’s one takeaway from a massive pile of numbers released after the City Council accepted what is called a comprehensive annual financial report.
The report, issued this month, puts Mesa in compliance with a 2010 state law requiring greater transparency as to municipal finances.
Mesa, however, has been issuing such documents for decades. For 30 years, the city has been honored for excellence in financial reporting by the Government Finance Officers Association, whose members work for governments across the United States and Canada.
The report was audited and endorsed by Clifton Larson Allen, a nationwide accounting firm.
Most of the approximately 200 pages are financial tables outlining Mesa’s revenues, expenses, debts and assets. In general, the report concludes, the numbers depict a “fiscally conservative approach to budget development while still providing quality services to citizens.”
Many of the numbers are batted around annually in public meetings as the City Council hashes out its annual budget and bond sales. The Mesa Republic reports on these discussions as they occur.
But deep within the report there are numbers that track the trajectory of the recession that battered the city and its residents in the late ’00s, that reflect Mesa’s growing ability to operate a leaner government, and that even speak to the swiftly changing nature of Mesa’s economy and quality of life.
The report is at www.mesaaz.gov ; click on “budget” and then “comprehensive annual financial report.”
Here are the highlights:
