Making Town Priorities Simple
Tiered Needs System for Gilbert
A town works best when its priorities are clear, disciplined, and consistent. Before we talk about growth, amenities, or new initiatives, we have to agree on what must always come first and what gets built on top of that foundation. A tiered needs system creates a simple, common-sense order of operations for how Gilbert protects life, maintains safety, and invests in long-term strength. It ensures the essentials are always funded, difficult tradeoffs are handled responsibly, and quality of life improvements are sustained rather than promised and later compromised. This approach is about stability, trust, and delivering a town that works today while remaining strong for generations.
Tier 1: Life-Essential Services
Life-essential services are the non-negotiables that keep our town functioning and protect human life: water reliability, fire and rescue response, policing and emergency response, and core utility systems that support daily living. Gilbert’s own budgeting framework already treats these areas as foundational, with water/wastewater and public safety as major, ongoing budget responsibilities, and recent town budget communications reinforcing public safety and infrastructure as top priorities.
Tier 2: Safety and Mobility Infrastructure
Tier 2 is the infrastructure that keeps residents safe and the town moving: roads, intersections, traffic signal timing, bridges, drainage/stormwater systems, and the projects that reduce crash risk and congestion while supporting emergency response times. Across municipalities, “water systems, roads, and bridges” consistently rank among the highest infrastructure priorities, which aligns with what residents typically expect local government to keep in working order first.
Tier 3: Economic Drivers and Fiscal Resilience
Tier 3 is targeted investment that strengthens Gilbert’s revenue engine without changing the town’s character: business attraction and retention, workforce development partnerships, business-friendly permitting, and strategic site readiness for high-value employers. Nationally, economic and workforce development and infrastructure repeatedly surface as top mayoral priorities because they directly influence municipal fiscal health and long-term service capacity.
Tier 4: Parks, Recreation, and Community Enhancements
Tier 4 is quality-of-life programming and amenities that make Gilbert a place people choose on purpose: parks, recreation facilities, trails, libraries, and community programming. These matter, and they should be protected, but they must be planned and funded in a way that does not crowd out Tier 1 and Tier 2 obligations when budgets tighten. Gilbert’s own budget communications regularly include parks and community assets as part of a thriving community strategy, but they are most sustainable when the essentials are already secure.
This tiered structure is about consistency, not controversy: it creates a simple, repeatable order of operations for how we protect the town’s core obligations first and build quality of life on a stable foundation. We can validate the priorities annually using representative resident feedback tools already used by Gilbert and many communities nationwide to inform budgeting and performance planning. It also makes hard decisions easier, because it forces clear tradeoffs instead of shifting priorities based on headlines. If we fund Tier 1 and Tier 2 properly, and then invest intentionally in Tier 3, we give ourselves the financial strength to maintain Tier 4 without overburdening homeowners.
