Whitesboro City Council held its annual budget workshop recently. The council heard that overall, the city is doing well financially. Though the elected officials seemed to agree with the budget as presented, they will hold a public hearing in August before taking a final vote on the matter.
ZacFinance President Doug Martella said across all funds the proposed budget for fiscal year 2027 is a balanced budget. He added that the $24.6 million budget is “intended to be a living document.”
It is built around the city keeping the tax rate flat at .5858 per $100 valuation. The city’s taxable value, he said, is almost $600 million.
The budget as proposed includes a 3 percent cost of living increase for the city’s 124 employees.
Martel told the city council the biggest portion of the budget’s expenses goes to support public safety for the city’s 4,140 residents. That budget line item makes up 42 percent or $5 million of the overall budget.
Personnel is another big line-item in the budget. The city has 84 full-time staffers and 40 part-timers. In all, the budget for that group is $7.3 million. The budget includes $1.5 million for parks, recreation and library and $1.1 million for public works and streets.
Martella said most everyone is aware that the city does have some debt. Some of that debt is cross-pledged which means they are backed by both utility funds and tax revenue.
“You should have an interest and sinking tax rate,” he told the council. Martella said the city’s ordinances currently don’t provide for that structure. He said the way the ordinance was enacted last year, all of the city’s income went to operations and then the debt was paid out of operations.
“There should be and there is going to be an ordinance. ... I have already talked to Grayson County about making sure that split happens,” Martella said.
Going forward, he said, the city’s tax rate will be adopted as two distinct funds including a Maintenance and Operations fund and an Interest and Sinking fund.
He explained that adding the Interest and Sinking tax rate doesn’t impact the overall tax rate for the city. The change will just impact the way the funds are divided in the city’s budget. The property tax funds will go into a fund and the city’s debt will be paid from that fund.
“It just gives you room down the line if your taxable values continue to go up, you’ll have the capacity to issue debt. You’ll have so many more options than you currently do,” he said.
He also said the last audit that was presented to the city showed a negative $3 million in the General Fund balance although the same audit showed about a $9 million unrestricted fund balance in the Utility Fund.
He said it is important for the future to clear up that negative fund balance in case the city decides it wants to finance future plans with debt. He added that the city needs to get to a point where it has at least 90 days of fund balance in the General Fund.
The council’s next budget meeting will be Wednesday, Aug. 5 at 5 p.m. at City Hall.
Source: Vecteezy.com