Mr.Short-termMemory said:

---

Thank you for sharing the detailed information.

---

deh40 said:

---

Bob Yancy said:

---

Mr.Short-termMemory said:

---

Thank you for sharing the detailed information.

---

Of course! Happy to be transparent. This is the most extraordinary budget I've seen since elected. Very solid budget. Lots of efficiencies baked in here. Not perfect. Never is. But very good. About a 5% reduction in your tax rate. A city like ours in the 40 cent range is very strong, in my opinion.

Respectfully

Yancy '95

---

48.743 is in the 40 cent range? That sounds like how my son used to round his grades.

---

Rexter said:

---

Bob Yancy said:

---

This afternoon the proposed city budget was presented to council. As a member of the Budget & Finance Committee, I believe this is a good proposed budget, with some cautionary aspects to it. Here's a primer:

Total Proposed Budget = $474m
Your current tax rate: 51.3+ cents
Proposed tax rate: 48.743 cents
Estimated no new revenue rate: 46.7434
Estimated voter approval rate: 48.8940
12 new fire fighters for new Station #7
6 new police officers with the flexibility for 6 more
Total of 23 new FTEs (excluding overhire flexibility)
Operating budget increase of 6.26%
Capital budget decrease of 51.74%
Total net budget decrease of 12.42%

Of note:

Out of our $14 billion in property valuation, the amount frozen for seniors has increased 105% from $1 billion to over $2 billion in the past five years.

Despite this our net taxable value shot up 15%, 3% of which was new properties.

Single-family residential went up 4.5% the vast majority of which was increased valuation on existing property.

The average taxable value on an existing single-family residential home went up from $397k to $422k.

Multifamily shot up 31% primarily as a result of the student towers and is set to raise next year perhaps even higher as more towers get built.

Commercial valuations rose 20%

Our general fund fund balance is at $92 million and we have an approximate 20 million available new debt issuance capacity annually to maintain our Aa2 Moody's bond rating.

Approximately $22m in outstanding debt is retired annually as bonds mature (get paid off).

There is no proposed increase in electric or water rates.

Respectfully

Yancy '95

---

Still supplementing the general fund with utility money?

---

doubledog said:

---

Bob I heard on KBTX this morning that funds have been set aside for a new fire station. Is this true?

---

Craig Regan 14 said:

---

Bob,

2 questions that, to be fair are usually leading or lagging indicators

1.) Sales Tax receipts -- up or down (included by inflation)

2.) Debt service status?

---

• List the spending increases from FY25 to FY26 that are new or increased by over 20% or increased by over $50,000.
• What is the expected cost of roads and related infrastructure per person in FY26?
• Why are my taxes so high?
• Create a plan for College Station to eliminate the hidden tax on utilities and associated transfer to the general fund without reducing overall revenue

AgGunNut said:

---

Mr. Yancy,

What is the budget looking like regarding employee compensation? Specifically, public safety. From my conversations, our public safety employees are paid less and have higher work loads than comparable cities. For police, I'm including some recent recruiting flyers and pay scales for similar sized agencies. On top of these, I've heard Katy is looking at a 10% raise. Many of these agencies also allow a take-home vehicle program as an added retention incentive. Recruiting is great, but we need to keep our public safety employees that already work here from leaving for places that are paying more to work less.

Leander PD


Pearland PD


Baytown PD

---

AgGunNut said:

---

I agree with you about linemen.

As far as public safety, I guess it is six one way, half a dozen another. Short on people, but pay is below comparative agencies, even compared to other agencies in the county (who will likely also get some sort of pay adjustment for FY26). It seems like a difficult proposition to fix one or the other (and deciding which to fix first). Is it possible to fix both at once and fix the problem instead of limping it along?

---

AgGunNut said:

---

I follow you. Would still be nice if the City's first responders were at least at parity with their counterparts across the city limit line for the first time in many years.

---

AgGunNut said:

---

I follow you. Would still be nice if the City's first responders were at least at parity with their counterparts across the city limit line for the first time in many years.

---

AgGunNut said:

---

There is some fact to what you say. My 20 years in the area and having some of my closest life long friends working there or having worked there in the past gives some unique insight into the politics at hand with PD, the City, and area agencies. CSPD trains their officers a lot. So do the other area agencies. It does make them attractive outside BCS in a career field that isn't nearly the same as it used to be in regard to being able to go somewhere else to work and not have to start at the bottom (it was this way only 10-15 years ago). So if that's the case, why do we make it easier for good hands to walk away instead of enticing them even harder to stay? If we invest the tax dollars in them to make them as trained up as they are, it seems irresponsible to be in a constant arena of spending that tax money to train new people over and over instead of keeping the experience here locally.

But I digress, Councilman Yancy answered my questions and seems to be taking good notes.

---

Quote:

---

O&M money is tight (capital isn't)

---

Brian Alg said:

---

Quote:

---

O&M money is tight (capital isn't)

---

I am trying to figure out how this statement makes sense.

I appreciate that there appears to be a sense of frugality when it comes to O&M expenditures. But I am ignorant as to how capital expenditures somehow don't come from the same place (taxpayers' pockets).

Is it some baseline budgeting thing? Like, excessive spending in the past means that the capital budget is $XX million so the city is trying to boost this year's capital spending to that level with whatever project they can find?

That would explain the complete disregard for due diligence on capital projects that this council has shown. If there is a "use it, or lose it" bureaucratic budgeting mentality, that would explain a lot.

---

woodiewood1 said:

---

Bob Yancy said:

---

Rexter said:

---

Bob Yancy said:

---

This afternoon the proposed city budget was presented to council. As a member of the Budget & Finance Committee, I believe this is a good proposed budget, with some cautionary aspects to it. Here's a primer:

Total Proposed Budget = $474m
Your current tax rate: 51.3+ cents
Proposed tax rate: 48.743 cents
Estimated no new revenue rate: 46.7434
Estimated voter approval rate: 48.8940
12 new fire fighters for new Station #7
6 new police officers with the flexibility for 6 more
Total of 23 new FTEs (excluding overhire flexibility)
Operating budget increase of 6.26%
Capital budget decrease of 51.74%
Total net budget decrease of 12.42%

Of note:

Out of our $14 billion in property valuation, the amount frozen for seniors has increased 105% from $1 billion to over $2 billion in the past five years.

Despite this our net taxable value shot up 15%, 3% of which was new properties.

Single-family residential went up 4.5% the vast majority of which was increased valuation on existing property.

The average taxable value on an existing single-family residential home went up from $397k to $422k.

Multifamily shot up 31% primarily as a result of the student towers and is set to raise next year perhaps even higher as more towers get built.

Commercial valuations rose 20%

Our general fund fund balance is at $92 million and we have an approximate 20 million available new debt issuance capacity annually to maintain our Aa2 Moody's bond rating.

Approximately $22m in outstanding debt is retired annually as bonds mature (get paid off).

There is no proposed increase in electric or water rates.

Respectfully

Yancy '95

---

Still supplementing the general fund with utility money?

---

Yes. Approximately $15m per annum.

Respectfully

Yancy '95

---

To me, since we are a captive participant in CS Utilities, it should be illegal for a city.to transfer excessive utility receipts to a general fund to be used as council sees fit. Any excesses in receipts should be either given back to the users or escrowed into a fund to be only used for repairs and maintenance of existing utility infrastructure or escrowed for future expansion,

---