Tusayan’s days of massive spending for a town with a population of about 500 are coming to an end. On June 6^th, the Town Council met for almost two hours in executive session to discuss options after voters rejected a budget override in May. When members convened in open session, Mayor Craig Sanderson said the Town’s budget will be greatly scaled back.

“The voters have spoken. We do have state imposed expenditure limitations. We don’t know what the numbers are as far as the final number.”

The Mayor said previous media reporting (Including the Watchdog) indicating the budget would be around $1.4 million does not reflect the true estimate. He said the actual number is yet to be determined and will be based on a number of factors. But he said “It’s not going to be anything like our last year’s budget for sure.”

More meetings and executive sessions are planned to outline what items may be cut. Mayor Sanderson said, “There will be some tough conversations about what we’re going to spend with what money we do have.”

If voters had said yes the Town’s budget limit would have been about $18 million. 

Past spending has been considerable. For example the Town pays a Washington DC lobbying firm $15,000 a month. As much as $800,000 has been spent on remediation, site management, and unused materials and equipment because Tusayan did not follow county flood plain rules when it started site preparation at the 10X ‘affordable’ housing project. The project has remained stalled since the beginning of the year.