Middle of summer: budget planning

The main happening in the City Council (besides the appointment of external counsel to review allegations) is the budget for the next fiscal year, which begins October 1st. Budget meetings were held June 14th and 15th, and some discussion during the July 12th Council meeting. A public hearing on the proposed budget will be held Monday, August 16th at 5:30 pm. I'm still rather unfamiliar with the budget and the process, and I want to be accurate, so more details later.

note added 7/12: I had thought there was a budget work session following the July 12th meeting, but I was wrong. There is only some discussion of the budget during the meeting. Wording is fixed above.

But I'll briefly mention one issue. As you might have read in the paper a few weeks ago regarding the City of Waco budget, the state sales tax revenue is down significantly. Since part of that comes back to the city where the revenue was generated, Woodway will have less income from that source than anticipated. What impact this will have is still being worked out, and a major unknown at this point is what health insurance costs will be. The "staff recommendation" to the Council is that there be no raises for the City employees (which total 75-80 people) this next fiscal year. At the June 15th meeting, I asked what the cost of raises might be, and I believe the ballpark figure is about $130,000 (calculated based on the current total City personnel cost (~ $5,3000,000) times 0.025, an average 2.5% raise). The Council has authority over budgetary matters and can choose to retain raises by making changes elsewhere or by drawing on reserves. It appears to me to be very unlikely that the Council would vote to raise the property tax rate this year. In fact, the idea of a small (really only symbolic) decrease in the property tax rate was mentioned as a possibility by Mr. Zakhary, and this found support among at least some Council members (Scott Giddings and myself).

Again, more details later as I become more certain of the issues and the quantities involved. The budget meetings are open to the public. And remember that you can always let your Council know what concerns you have. The City website has instructions here for getting an email message to any or all of the Council members (scroll down to the bottom of the page). The contact information for the City Secretary (Jennifer Canady) is also given there; I have found her to be very helpful and informative on a wide range of issues.