Chandler likes to brag about its Fiscal strength and low-cost services. Let’s see if that’s true.

On May 17, 1912, the unincorporated place of Chandler was founded by Dr. Alexander John Chandler. Of course, it consisted of only three wooden shacks and a billboard on that first day. Dr. Chandler sold his land to speculators who had to build on that land within a year. Businesses, as well as a lot of farms, were built around the town, forming the town’s agricultural economic base. Over a thousand people lived in Chandler by 1920.  Arthur Price, the local Justice of the Peace, drafted the town's first charter and incorporated the town of Chandler on 2/17/1920.

Chandler’s population surged during and after World War II – to 3,800 by the beginning of the 50s. On May 24, 1954, Chandler was promoted from “town” to “city”. The population grew fairly slowly after that era – it was 30,000 in 1980, but the last few decades saw the population more than octuple to its current number. 

Things have also changed economically. While farms still exist in Chandler (after all, there’s still plenty of room for them in the city’s 65 square mile area), they are no longer the economic base of the city. Manufacturing and electronics are larger portions of the economics of the city today. 75% of the population has at least “some college”, hence the workforce might be unusually skilled.

Great accolades. Let’s see if they’ve earned them. 

The city appears to be balancing the budget on sales taxes and service charges. This isn’t a practice I agree with (sales taxes are regressive), but it is clearly proven to be fiscally sound. The City’s sales tax revenues, (more than half the city’s general revenue!), increased by 7.1% from the previous year. 120 million in revenue comes from the aforementioned sales taxes (compared to 112 million in the prior year), at almost double their second biggest funding source from the general populace. 

Service charges to residents are 75 million for the year (compared to 76 million in the prior year). To my knowledge the city does not have its own power plants, depending on the exact address power for residents comes from either Salt River Project or Arizona Public Service (despite the names, the latter is actually a private company, while the former is state run). Chandler provides water services to all of its residents, as well as trash pickup and sewer services. 


However, it appears that service charges to businesses are actually the biggest funding source of all at 124 million (118 million in the prior year) and represent over 77% of the income from businesses! I’m not aware of what additional services the city provides for businesses beyond the citizen services, though they’re apparently big money earners.


Chandler managed to bring in a total of 482 million, compared to 492 million for the prior year. State Shared revenue (65 million this year and 60 million in the prior year) and Capital Grants and Contributions (37 million this year and 49 million in the prior year) were the other big revenue earners. Note that the biggest change goes to other taxes, which made 6 million dollars last year but only 664 thousand this year. 
