(Seguin) — The Seguin City Council is nearing the end of the city’s budget process.
The council recently gave first-round approval to the budget and tax rate for the coming fiscal year. City officials say the budget attempts to control expenses in the fast-growing city while also meeting an increasing demand for services.
City Manager Steve Parker says it was a difficult budget year because of a reduction in the revenue available to fund next year’s spending plan. He says several factors contributed to the decline, but city staff worked hard to get the best possible outcome from the available funds.
“This has been a very tough budget. I appreciate all the staff that’s put in the work to make sure that we’re being good stewards of the citizens’ money. Once again, this council is focused on things that matter for communities — streets, public safety, all those types of things. We once again want to state that we’re very lean. But we also have the best of the best employees and I appreciate the focus on them to make sure they know they’re appreciated and that we want to keep them. It’s going to cost us a lot more if we don’t keep them. We have to retrain people every year. But just once again, it’s been a lot of challenges with this — with the losing of the big property values related to House Bill 9, (and) the one entity that actually was counted in the city that shouldn’t be the city (last year). (It) was very challenging. But once again, the directors stepped up, and cut their city budgets by 10 percent, just to make sure that we were making sure our employees could get their cost of living increases and so that we could retain them. (That was) one of their major priorities,” said Parker.
Expenditures in the city’s general fund will be supported by a property tax rate of 52.94 cents per $100 of property value. That represents a tax increase of slightly more than a penny and a half over the rate adopted last year.
Despite the projected revenue shortfall, Councilman Jason Biesenbach says city staff and the council worked together to develop a responsible budget and tax rate for the coming year.
“I just want to say thank you to the staff. You always run lean, so that helps keep our tax rate nice and low. That helps the citizens,” said Biesenbach.
The city’s revenue challenges are similar to those faced by many taxing entities this year. Officials say changes in state law have provided additional tax relief for property owners but have also reduced the revenue available to cities, counties and school districts as they work to meet the growing demand for services.
Councilman Jim Lievens says these kinds of budget challenges are likely to continue for some time.
“I think this climate we’re in of reduced property taxes is likely to continue. And if that doesn’t continue, maybe there’s going to be increased taxes anyway from the state. So, I’m just suggesting that we may be seeing a period of time where we’re going to be looking at reduced revenue, for not just this upcoming year, but maybe some future years,” said Lievens.
The budget and tax rate were approved on first reading. A second and final reading will take place during the council’s next meeting. The city’s new fiscal year begins October 1.