City Council - workshop

Welcome everybody to the City of Farmers Branch City Council study session for Tuesday, July 7th. Our first order of business this afternoon will be public comments. I have two people that have signed up to speak this afternoon. When I call your name, you'll please come up to the podium, state your name and address. You'll have three minutes. And we will start with Barbara Currier.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council. I'm here to speak to item K-4 on the consent agenda. Barbara Currier, 40 Tinker Circle. Thank you. Who's right here at the top. I'm here to speak to item K-4 on the consent agenda, resolution number 2026-093, revising the policy pertaining to city responses to repetitive Public Information Act requests. I understand the rationale for the revisions to when charges are levied, and I absolutely have no problem with them. What I'm concerned about is the last sentence of section one, which states that future revisions to said policy may be adopted and implemented by city staff without the need for further formal council action unless otherwise required by law. I object to that provision, not because I suspect the city staff of having now or in the future nefarious plans to make excessive changes. I imagine the inclusion of that provision is to save the council time from having to weigh in on changes, closing loopholes not yet anticipated, and to allow the staff the ability to close those loopholes expeditiously because we all know there are those who will take advantage of any loopholes they can find. Rather, I object because when changes need to be considered by the council, then we, the public, also have the opportunity to know about them ahead of time, to consider them, and to speak to them if necessary. To remove the opportunity for public input to changes to our city's implementation of the Public Information Act is, well, ironic. So what I'm asking is that council remove item K-4 from the cassette agenda to allow for council discussion and hopefully so that an amendment can be offered and considered to strike the last sentence of section one. Thank you.

Thank you.

And I have 48 seconds left, so if you have not yet seen Shrek the Musical, go see it. It's fantastic.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Mary Ann Peffer.

Good afternoon, Council. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. This is Mary Ann Pfeffer. I am at 3465 Courtyard Circle here in Farmer's Ranch. And I want to talk quickly in support of... The proposed calendar of events for acknowledgement on social media, and I'm gonna even add some more groups if you don't mind. As a former elementary teacher, and I look over here, I was gonna look over here, but there we go. When I think back to the days of student of the week, made them feel good. They were recognized, it validated their efforts as their being, just like Heritage Month served to validate a collective identity, contributions, and I noticed that there are a couple extra ones. Well, you could do something like in April, we're the city of parks. We could do something like celebrating Arbor Day and putting that as a very positive because that seems to go as well. We could even add our Basset Law UK and Gartzen and Schoenbach, you know, our travels there having to do with that. Cultural calendar months scales up psychological benefits like athlete of the month, It takes it from the individual level to the community level. Weekly or monthly student awards can validate a single person. Group collective identity gives them a sense of place and society. And when my student was named a Music Student of the Week, why they felt seen, motivated, they wanted to participate. Capable, worthy, macro recognition directly combats feeling of being invisible or even marginalized. So weekly or monthly awards sense an intentional standard. You have personal motivation, systemic motivation. psychological safety, and according to social psychology contact theory, meaningful education about diverse groups under supportive conditions reduces implicit bias, breaks down social barriers, builds widespread empathy. So as I close, let me just tell you, other small towns do great things too. I'm holding up just one week of a Mascoutah, Illinois, little tiny town. They designate everything. Of course, yesterday was D-Day, so that's wonderful. But did you know that yesterday was National Gardening Exercise Day? And today is National Ice Cream Day. Of course, I'm lactose intolerant. It wouldn't do many any good. But I think the more that we can be inclusive, the better our city will be. Thank you so much. Thanks for all you do.

Thank you, Mary. Okay. That's all the speakers that I have signed up to speak this afternoon. So we will move right on to C1, which is review and discuss consent and regular agenda items. Councilwoman Gonzalez?

Nothing for me, Mayor.

Councilwoman Bennett?

Nothing for me, Mayor.

Councilman Reed? Nothing here. Councilwoman Villafranca?

Nothing. Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman Neal?

Mayor, I'd like to see if we could pull item K-4 from consent to regular agenda. I have a few additional questions. In addition, we had some public comments regarding the item as well.

Okay, so K-4 will move to regular agenda and become M-5. All righty. Thank you. Moving on. Next item up is item C2, discuss and receive a presentation on the fiscal year 2026-27 budget update, including fiscal outlook, revenue considerations, strategic investment areas, and ongoing budget development topics.

Good afternoon, Mayor, city council members. My name is Jay Patel. I'm the finance director for the city, and today we'll be continuing our discussions regarding the fiscal year 2027 budget process. On your screen before you, you'll see the topics of discussions that we've covered thus far identify with the red check mark and some of the remaining items there towards the bottom of the screen. Largely the tax rate discussions which occur in the month of August predominantly. Employee benefits. We'll cover at a separate presentation later today. And sales tax will provide a revenue update as it relates to sales tax collections to date and comparing them to collections in the prior year. Also, I'd like to end off with a slide on a budget priority topic. So the slide that I end off, the past several study sessions depicting which priority items are incorporated into the budget, just so we're all on the same page in regards to what's been addressed thus far. Moving on to sales tax, you'll see that sales tax remains strong and are actually expected to outperform prior years as of the last couple of months. You'll see we were neck and neck in terms of sales tax collections, and we really started to pull ahead in the past couple of months. But it's very important to note that the sustained sales tax growth for our community has not been passive. just over the last couple of years our our city's alignment has shifted in terms of our city management office um mainly focused on the recruitment side of of um just our city's growth while our economic development team really focuses on the retention side and that tandem effort is really what you'll see the fruits of hearing the numbers that are before you there is a a counterpart of the story that's important to consider in this, and that's the incentive payments going out the door. With these increased recruitment efforts, you'll see that our expenditures that we're absorbing in the operating budget have increased in recent years. And as a result, we are proposing to increase our revenue stabilization fund threshold from $23 million to $23.5 million. And back up and explain the threshold for some added context. Currently with sales tax collections, all collections over $23 million we sweep or we transfer into our revenue stabilization fund. What staff is proposing for the upcoming fiscal year is to increase that amount by half a million dollars to help absorb the operating cost impact that we've seen in recent years. So from going from $23 million to $23.5 million. Moving on to water rates. One of the questions we've seen we've seen consistently since our most recent rate increases, why are rates so high? And it's a nuanced question and it's hard It's hard to analyze these rates in a vacuum, similar to property taxes. Every city's property tax is largely dependent on the service level needs of each community, the expectations of each community, as well as the varying other general fund revenue sources for each community. And water rates should be viewed in a similar manner. Each utility system is very different based on the age of the system, the size of the system, so the number of customers that we're serving, as well as the resulting amount of water being treated from those customers. Also, you have varying infrastructure needs from system to system, with it being the infrastructure needs of today as well as in the future, as well as the deferred maintenance that have accrued over the past for each varying utility system. But one major differentiating factor for our utility system as compared to most is our ability to manage the system with zero debt. And you'll see here on the slide how our debt comparison compares to our regional surrounding cities. You'll see Carrollton, That $1.4 million, you'll see increase to closer to the amount of Capelle, largely due to them issuing approximately $10 million of debt this fiscal year that has not hit their debt schedule yet. So those two annual debt amounts will be more hand in hand. But this is the amount of debt service that these various cities are incorporating within their existing operating budgets on an annual basis. Our city, this upcoming fiscal year, is investing $12.8 million in water, wastewater infrastructure needs. That's a powerful statement to make, and most cities of our size are not in a position to afford that kind of level of investment. For investment of that magnitude, a majority of cities our size would choose to finance that investment over 20 years. absorb approximately $900,000 in operating budget impact on an annual basis over time, and pay $5 million in interest expenses over that time. And that's just for one year of infrastructure needs for our city. That becomes a slippery slope and starts to compile on top of each other. So our approach of cash funding our projects avoids decades of interest payments for our community members, as well as it preserves our borrowing capacity for future councils and our community members in terms of should we choose to participate in some sort of strategic investment in the future, some sort of regional infrastructure need that comes about. It puts us in a position to navigate that landscape should those needs arise. And this takes me to one of my final slides of this presentation, it's the budget priority slide. And you'll see minimal changes on this from our most recent presentation, but most notably, you'll see the strike through through the firehouse theater sponsorship. Just based on recent direction from our council members, we are seeking to incorporate this need for the lobbying kitchen repairs within our existing operating budget, which we'll present on later this evening to provide additional context behind. But with that, there's no other changes on this slide, but we do seek to keep this updated just as our study sessions progress. So you have the latest information in terms of which priority items are incorporated within the budget that you all will be presented in the coming weeks. And with that, I'd like to conclude my presentation for this evening, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you all may have.

Thank you very much, Jay. Councilman Gonzalez?

On that last slide? Yes. Sorry. Absolutely. the pedestrian traffic improvements, that'll include, I'm sorry, if it's on STEM, that'll include like the sidewalks and stuff, right? Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Jay, no questions for me. Thank you.

Councilman Reid? Love it, like always. Thank you, great presentation. Thank you, sir.

Councilman Villafranca?

Thank you, Jay. Can you please expand on the second to the last budget priorities, second to the last slide?

Yes, absolutely.

Can you talk a little bit about community garden and also the code cares? I don't really think we've received a whole lot of detailed information about it and I'd like to I'd like our residents and I'd like for the rest of the council to kind of have an idea what's going on.

Absolutely. So as it relates to community garden, we are exploring all options to address this need in a budget-neutral capacity. So whether it's utilizing our community partnerships, in-kind services, public-private partnerships, as well as grant opportunities through USDA and other opportunities that we are seeking availability through, we're looking to address this need internally. So we're currently in the assessment phase or before we bring back a recommendation in terms of carrying out this endeavor. But we are currently researching all opportunities available, especially as it relates to grants. And the code care, I know that one's going to be a budget-neutral impact from how we've presented it thus far. But as it relates to... an expansion on our current plans. I would have to follow up with just additional details as it relates to scheduling and then the initiation of that endeavor.

Thank you.

Councillor Neill.

Thank you, Mayor. Jay, thanks for the presentation. I just wanted to ask you if there's any particular direction that you need from us at this time. Otherwise, I don't really have any questions, but if there's something you're looking from us at this time.

Not at this time. Our conversation will be much more, once we get the certified property values, August will be much more in terms of discussion.

Okay, thanks. That's all I have.

Mayor.

Yes, go ahead.

Ben, can you go into Code Cares? You were the one, I believe, that wrote the memo.

I would need some time to pull it up and have that information available so we can circle back to that later on. We can have that prepared for part of later on in the study session.

Okay.

So just so counsel knows that we do have a lot on the agenda tonight, and I want to get our executive session item taken care of. So we can circle back to that and we'll finish the executive session. I mean, not excuse me, we'll finish study session after our regular meeting. So I'm making a note that we'll come back to. OK. Anything else on this at this at this time? Okay. Then I'm going to go ahead and read us into an executive session. City Council will convene in closed executive session pursuant to Section 551.087 of the Texas Government Code to discuss economic development incentives for Farmers Ranch Project 2025.014. We're going to go and take care of that, and then we will be back out for the reception in the lobby. Thank you.

We're going to be serving here.