Money Talks: So What’s Albuquerque Saying?
Kristin Satterlee examines Albuquerque’s largest-ever city budget and explores what our spending priorities may reveal about what we value.
by Kristin Satterlee
The City of Albuquerque has passed its largest-ever city budget: 1.5 billion dollars for the coming fiscal year (FY26). The names of the top five spending items have been widely publicized—but what are they, and how does this spending match the city’s top stated goals? What do these spending priorities say about our city’s values—and ours?
Police ($273,975,000)
APD (Albuquerque Police Department) comprises by far the largest item, at over 18% of the city budget. This number does not include ACS (Albuquerque Community Safety), which handles nonviolent behavioral and mental health calls and has its own budget of $23.3 million.
Policing in general, and APD in particular, have been under a great deal of scrutiny for some time, resulting in federal oversight of APD (a “consent decree”) that ran from 2014 through May 2025. What does it mean that policing remains our city’s largest expenditure?
Fire Rescue ($128,682,000)
Albuquerque Fire Rescue (AFR) combines with APD and ACS to form Albuquerque’s three community safety departments, with budgets totalling over $400 million—nearly a third of the city’s budget. “Public Safety” is the second of seven 5-year goals for the city. Why does this goal receive such a large piece of our city’s spending?
Group Self-Insurance Fund ($101,735,000)
Instead of being insured by an outside company, Albuquerque provides its own insurance through this fund. It pays for employees’ health insurance as well as for workers’ compensation claims, liability, and so on.
General Obligation Bond Debt Service ($97,460,000)
“Debt service” refers to paying off things bought on credit. If you’ve voted in a city election, you’re familiar with general obligation (GO) bonds: all those bond questions like “Shall Albuquerque issue X million dollars of bonds to do lots of stuff for senior centers,” or streets, or schools, or libraries—the things we as citizens and voters want our city to do. Or at least that’s how we vote: The vast majority of GO bonds presented to Albuquerque voters have passed by wide margins.
Municipal Development Department ($50,617,000)
The Municipal Development Department is responsible for building and maintaining much of the physical infrastructure of the city, including roads, storm drains, lighting, community centers, libraries, parking, and traffic calming. “Public Infrastructure” is the third of Albuquerque’s 5-year goals. Is this money being used effectively for the well-planned and -maintained infrastructure we need?
Much more to know
The “top five budget items” is a blunt tool with which to try and understand something as complex as our city’s values. It doesn’t address changes in spending over time (like the 0.5% cost-of-living wage increase for city workers or cuts to open space management) or smaller expenditures that might make a great difference. But it’s a place to start.
Want to know more? Follow the links to the full city budget and Albuquerque’s goals and objectives for the near future.