City Council - Regular Meeting

I've got a couple quick questions. So was the city expecting to receive any, tax revenue, or is there any revenue that we budgeted for that we wouldn't be seeing as a result? There is not. OK. And the last one is, do we incur any obligations as a result of this annexation? No. All right. Thank you.

So I know I don't have to say this, and you already know, but we want to ensure that whatever we say is consistent with what we're saying in our grants, right?

No, that's good. I'm glad you guys have the opportunity to do that. I know it's a short window, but I appreciate it. This goes back to like 1950 when the first drought happened in Texas that was so severe that they said we're going to start a water plant for the state. And they've been doing it since then every so many years.

Smarter men than me are doing this together. I'll make a motion.

Does that look like the one that we reviewed last week. Yes.

So for some reason I have highlighted the

Yeah, with a budget of 548, 439. And I don't remember being the only one talking about that. So I don't know if anybody else.

So Pam, do you have any idea what that cost would be? What we're looking at is the 3% that's added to. I'm thinking it's 3% of the total. It's probably. Reduce it by 3%. That would be what it is.

And no raise. Was option five. I think that's a raise. Option five only. Time and position is a raise. And the bring to minimum is a raise. But I know you're saying no raise with a 3%. I'm just saying no raise. Yeah, across the board. Yeah. No, no, across the board, 3%. How much is 3% of how much are we talking about?

So... Right now, I need to go back and look at the overall cost for option four, starting in March. That was how much?

Man, my mind was working great a minute ago, and now I'm in number dyslexia. So is that somewhere in the neighborhood of 30, like... Less than 30K, right? Less than 30,000. 10% is 30, I'm thinking... 10% is 32, one third of that is 10 point change, four, 10 point somewhere around there.

And we were short how much? About $35,000. $35,000.

So I like the idea of bring to minimum. We want to bring staff up, get them at that level where we know we're matching at least 90% of our employees.

And then the time and position, I'm kind of, you know, like I was saying, I'm more of a merit guy. I believe in merit pay. But if this is a one-time thing, which I may have misunderstood before, I thought it was something that was going to continue to increment as they stayed in there. This is a one-time thing.

right so so i'm i'm good with that like 90 and that's okay because we want staff that are actually out there doing a great job and they've been there a long time and we want to be we want them to be recognized and get the appropriate pay yes my concern is for those that aren't doing a bang up job But that's okay. We're right now trying to close that gap and create, recalibrate, I guess is the word. Okay, the buzzword is recalibrate. And build that staff up. And I like that. Looking at the rates, I mean, pay scale is good here in this compensation study. So I'm thinking 3% on top of that, that

Yeah, I get it. Anybody out there? No, that was what I understood.

For the bring to minimum, right? That doesn't count for those with time and position, right? There are others.

I heard that there were 30-ish that were just needed to be brought to minimum.

There's some that are going to get less than 3%? No.

Well, that that's that's good news, I think, too, too lovely. Right. And I would I would go with the six, six, six, seven, six, seven.

Was it. Oh, it is six, six, five, eight, seven, three. And you said you could still figure out how to get option four, but you'd be 30 K short.

Yeah, exactly, right? We coulda did this last week. That's what we were supposed to do last week. We shoulda did this last week. And I'm giving my position, right? So you guys have positions, bring them. Oh, we did. It's a good time to talk about it.

folks I think we're nickel and diming this thing to death and the reason I say that the difference in the impact on the taxpayer between proposed 66 and the 67 or even the 68 Guys, we're making a correction here. If you know the history of the council, back in 23 and 24, I think is when they reduced the tax rate, they didn't do us any favors. They thought they were at the time, but they didn't do us any favors. Since 2020, this community has grown 40%, and it continues to grow at a rate of about 6% a year. We continue to add about 800 to 1,000 homes a year to this community.

Almost one a day. And the thing is, if we look at even real conservative predictions, we're going to be servicing 20,000 people in a short period of time. And some people even go as high as maybe 40, 50,000 people by 20, you know, in 10 years. So my point is... i don't think we're doing the taxpayers any any justice by not continuing to try to protect their investment and that's these people that's our employees again i'll go back and say it a thousand times if you've got a guy if you've got a certified deep guy in water and waste water and you lose him it's going to cost you twenty thousand t

So option four. So that's no different from what I'm saying and from what Bo is saying can be done. So I don't think that's insanity, right? Because we're both going for the same option.

Yeah, no, but I'm just saying to reduce the tax rate any lower and put these guys in a position to have to go dig up. I mean, the impact. They're going to have to find the money. They're going to have to find the money. And the impact is going to be so minuscule. Again, I'm not making light of $100. Yeah, I wouldn't say that.

I'm just saying if you don't do it now you'll do it to him later which is going to be worse.

Yeah I think that that's yeah and they're coming to me and they're coming from all directions right. So we have a federal 65 and up right. Yeah.

And I understand your position. And this is the right time, right? So I'm going to stop talking.

Got it. Again, I just think the council from years ago can't go, you know, whatever somebody did back then is what they did. But my point is I don't think they did us any favor now because at the rate we're growing, you know, we've grown 40% since 2020. Our staff hasn't grown 40% since 2020. And, again, if you... If you're just being reactive in terms of, we're not fixing whole streets anymore, we're just patching potholes. And unless we got the money to do the work, we can't do it. So that's my point.

I agree. We definitely need to account for what's coming in, right?

say everybody needs to jump on board with what Roland thinks, obviously. And you guys?

And I also think we're not progressive with our infrastructure and our employees and things like that. You know, these commercial endeavors that come into it, like Taylor and some of those places, they're looking at places that can afford them some capacity, not necessarily, you know, In other words, they're looking at communities that are flourishing and that sort of thing. And again, I look at it like maintenance on my car. I can do a little bit of maintenance every year and save my car, or I can wait until the engine explodes and then, you know. You pay more. You're going to pay more. The $

So that we're on the same page. We're not talking about not doing it, right? Because I think we're all talking about option four. So nobody's saying we're not going to do that. And when you're saying that we got to pay our people, we're saying that we want to pay the people the same amount. So I'm not saying pay the people any different amount than from what you guys are saying. So I just want to put that level set out there just so that we all understand. I don't want less for our staff than what you want. you know, that waiting years and years is gonna cost you more. I think we did that already. The city's done that and here we are now where we're having to do this maintenance.

Right, and I think we all agree that we need to do it. I'm on board with that too. And we're all agreeing on the same options, so the same amount of raise or pay for the people. So I think on that level, we're on the ground. I think we may not, and I'll bring it up myself, is so we wind up with less additional revenue or.

Correct. So then. How many staff do we have positions do we have for staff that are not filled that are budgeted.

Zero end. Right. No, and that's the way it should be. So I think we're all good with that.

So let's say 6-7, are we going to be sitting here next year talking about having to— Increase taxes again because I know we just did it last year.

I mean my hope is that Eventually that Elgin takes off in terms of retail, but we were Supposedly the hottest thing going in in that in this corridor out here in terms of growth and And I think we've got some promising commercial growth ahead of us and that we would start sharing in some of the $9.6 million that Bastrop takes in every year for sales tax. So that's my hope.

So five, ten years from now when 290 reaches us, are we getting some portion of that?

So it'll bring in people, but I'm talking about are we getting any portion of the revenue that's generated? Oh, no, no, no.

You get to pay the toll. Hey, I do that today.

So the implication, and again, this is my naivete, right? So the implication of doing 68 on paper and then coming back and doing 67 on the actual tax.

Would it make more sense if we adopted a tax rate than the budget?

but they already got paid right this isn't about paying them it's about no it's about city business city business their recommendations and instituting those reclassifications to our systems