The Sandy City Council adopted the mayor’s tentative budget for the 2027 fiscal year on May 5. The funding plan underscores local leaders' focus on public safety, retaining city personnel and budget solvency.

“The FY2027 budget places a strong emphasis on efficiency and long-term financial sustainability,” Mayor Monica Zoltanski wrote in the budget overview. “While we continue to invest in key priorities, we are deliberately focusing on reducing duplication, maximizing existing resources and limiting future cost burdens.”

City administrators estimate a 2% net growth in Sandy’s tax base in 2027. Projected revenue from relatively slow growth and funding requests for the general budget and capital projects leave fiscal gaps of $2.5 million and $6 million, respectively.

“Sandy is more mature, built out, we are not seeing the heavy growth that we did in the ’90s [and] early 2000s,” Administrative Services Director Brian Kelley told the council during a budget preview on April 7. “So that puts pressures on us financially.”

Sandy’s elected officials wanted to balance the budget without increasing property taxes. To do this, each department submitted budget scenarios with spending cuts ranging from 2% to 4%. However, Kelley said the city decided “not to do any across-the-board-cutting” and opted for a “more targeted approach.”

One notable shift in approach is the merging of the Public Works and Utilities departments. Merging the two divisions would allow the city to scrap rebuilding the Public Works’ vehicle maintenance storage unit, saving Sandy $11 million. Instead, the city will allocate $1 million to build additional office space to accommodate the reorganization.

The merger will also lead to staff reductions in June, reducing personnel costs.

“As the departments are able to cross-train and work things out, see what’s working, we believe there will be even more position savings,” Kelley said.

While the merger will net some personnel savings, staff turnover across all departments is one of Sandy's key challenges. The city had a turnover rate of 10.6% in 2025, with voluntary departures as the main driver. 

“We want to maintain a positive culture here as well as competitive pay so that [turnover] doesn’t happen because it is very costly to replace people,” Kelley said. “We lose a lot of institutional knowledge and expertise, and it has real costs associated with it.”

The budget proposal addresses employee attrition through a $2.7-million compensation plan, including a 2.5% Cost of Living Adjustment for all city employees. Police and firefighters will see an extra 2% on top of that.

Police and fire are also the only city agencies seeing budget increases overall, reflecting Sandy's elected leaders designating community safety its number one budget priority for the upcoming fiscal year.

Law enforcement will receive technological tools and improvements, including software upgrades for drones and an artificial intelligence program to help fill out police reports. The fire department will see a fund increase to cover part-time staff and rising costs for dispatch fees, equipment and ambulance services. 

Sandy lawmakers will likely finalize the 2027 budget by June 23.