Title
Conduct a public hearing on the Proposed Fiscal Year 2019-20 Operating and Capital Improvement Program Budget in accordance with Article IV of the City Charter; and take appropriate action
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DISCUSSION:
A public hearing is being held to consider the 2019-20 Operating and Capital Improvement Program Budget. The proposed budget was filed with the City Secretary on July 31, 2019 and copies of the proposed budget were made available for public inspection at City Hall, the Manske Library and on the City’s website.
Public work sessions of the City Council were held on August 20, 2019, September 3, 2019, September 11, 2019, and earlier this evening to discuss the budget. The City Council also conducted a budget retreat August 13th-15th to discuss and review the budget. The City Council will vote later this evening to adopt the budget and to levy the tax rate.
City Administration prepared a budget based on maintaining the current tax rate of $0.599507, which will raise more total property taxes than last year’s budget by $1,542,430 or 4.55%, and of that amount, $1,930,791 is tax revenue to be raised from new property added to the tax roll this year.*
*Please note that this state-mandated statement does not appear to be mathematically correct but has been calculated exactly as required by revisions to the Texas Property Tax Code Section 26.05(b). The calculation problem comes from tax increment finance district adjustments that are made in the current year but not in the prior year. The code also references the term “budget” but actually means “levy”.
The procedure tonight will be as follows:
1. The Mayor will open the public hearing.
2. Comments will be heard from citizens.
3. The hearing will be closed and the City Council will take action to schedule a vote to adopt the budget later this evening.
4. City Council discussion will follow.
The Mayor will now open the public hearing on the proposed budget.