City Council - Special Meeting

is fighting buffaloes up in West Yellowstone, Montana, and he will be participating remotely. And I will just ask you, is it okay for us to proceed if you were to get disconnected? Yes, sir. All right, so we're good. So that was just our only housekeeping. Next, our Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. flag will be led by Councilmember Dave Covington. Our Texas Pledge will be led by Director of Library Services Amanda Hairston. And then the invocation will be led by Councilmember Luke Potts. Please rise.

Please join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

Please bow with me. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for all the servants we have in this room. We are always willing to step up and be there for our community. We just ask that you bless our conversations tonight and help us to lead a great discussion about our community with respect to each other and to all those involved. And please bless our city. Please bless our city staff. Please bless our state. In your name we pray. Amen.

Amen. With that, we will call this meeting to order at 532. The first item to take action or in our meeting is our public comments. If anyone wishes to say anything positive, negative, or indifferent about the city, now is the time to do so. There being no one rushing the podium, we will close our public comments and go to item three. Consider an ordinance adopting Belton's strategic plan for fiscal year 2027. Mr. Listie.

All right. So we've had our public hearings on this. We've had a lot of discussions, a lot of meetings around that. We've helped form this over the years. So the chair would entertain a motion or discussion.

We have a motion and a second to adopt the ordinance for the Belton Strategic Plan for fiscal year 2027 through 2031. Any comments before we vote? There being no comments, all in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? All right, passes unanimously. I gave it some Kentucky windage that time. Gave it a little bit of gap. So it's hard to. Michigan second. Michigan second. That's a. All right. Item four is consider an ordinance adopting the city of Belton fee and rate schedule for fiscal year 2027. Miss Casey.

Thank you, Amy. Again, we've had this on our agenda several times the last couple of weeks. So because of that, I chair would entertain a motion or comments about item four.

I will say when it comes to this fee schedule, I have a hard time with several of the increases. And I think it hits a lot of different people in our community. I can give multiple examples, but if you just take the increase in cost for when it comes to builders and development, it's a significant increase. And I understand increase in fees, you know, when they need to happen, if they're tied to a specific cost, um, and that cost gets increased. But, you know, if you take like the, you know, just an example of the, increase for plat reviews where it goes from $150 to $1,000. We're not all of a

The increase that you're talking about, the specific one with flat reviews is not, we were not breakeven at $150. We were bleeding at $150. And I think we're still losing money, correct me if I'm wrong, at $1,000 fee there. Did anybody from staff hear from TABBA on this item? I know that they attended public hearings and I didn't know if Michael Smith with TABBA was here. He didn't speak at the public hearing, but I didn't know if you might've heard from him.

So as we discussed the conversation with those developers, did they have comments about our fee schedule, positive, negative, neutral? So there was no specific concerns or issues that they brought up?

I would just say constituents that I spoke to that are builders did have issues.

Any other comments or the chair would entertain a motion?

I make a motion to adopt the B&R schedule as presented.

We have motion and second to adopt the City of Belton fee and rate schedule for fiscal year 2027. The one comment I will make on a lot of the fees that we saw is there are a lot of fees. Over the years, Belton has always been very low on our fees. When we're low on our fees, what we're doing is whatever that fee is, the cost of that is being supported by ad valorem tax primarily because we don't really control fees. sales tax revenue other than through policy of trying to bring in things that are not just houses. Like so when we bring in businesses that bring in sales tax. But there are a lot

Just want to make sure that- Yeah, so we went to a tiered. And then in some cases when it's engineering that are outside costs, it's the actual cost of whatever that is. We're not making a profit on that. Okay. And it's right. I mean, when we supplement anything in the city with taxes, especially property taxes, we need a good reason for it. And if it helps spur development, which generally lowers the taxes, the increase in the cost plus the increased revenue of more taxes pay for itself. So there's an economic development aspect to some of these fees, which again, I think ours is reasonable. Okay. Any other comments before we vote?

All right. I would just make one last comment. And that's the, you know, I agree. That's what staff has worked toward is, you know, having recouping the cost of a total service. I just don't feel like that has to be done on every service. I don't feel like every public service needs a fee and it needs to break even.

So the alternative is that that cost that we're supplementing, whatever the fee is, would be shouldered by property taxes. So the corollary is if you're not for that, you're for an increase in property taxes to pay for that.

Well, no, I mean, that's what it is. That's the only other level we have. If we have a fee here and a fee there and we want to go down here, we have to go up there. The only thing we can control, we can't change our sales tax revenue. We can change our property tax rate.

We can change all of the sales tax, property tax.

We can't change our sales tax rate. It's set by the state.

We can change how the allocation is of the sales tax.

Yeah, but that's a different conversation than fee and rate schedule. That's a different, that's a different.

You're exactly right. You brought it up and I was just clarifying that that can be changed.

Not today. That's correct. So today our choice is go up on fees or go up on property taxes. Well, that's fine. You don't have to agree with it. It doesn't make it right or wrong. But the fact is, if anything we change to lower revenue in one pot, we will have to increase revenue in another pot. And at this point in the game, the only thing we could do...

But these are new raises and fees. It's coming from... No, it's... I think they're new fees. They're not new. There are new fees. Yes, there are.

The new fees are to accommodate the in kind cost the city has had. They're not new costs. They've always been. These are all costs. These are not new costs. And so all we're doing is replacing the cost with a fee. Reasonable.

So, I just want to make sure we're technically correct. I mean, opinion, we can vote one way or the other, but from a technical standpoint, it's shifting it from fees to property taxes.

And I disagree because we're here to set... You can disagree that two plus two equals four doesn't make it different. But there are reasons that we have had these lower fees in the past, and a lot of it is to... help builders, help developers to not have a question about what the cost was. That's correct.

And Temple Area Builders Association reviewed these fees.

I'm not interrupting you. I'd like to finish my point. And sometimes there does need to be a collective from the general fund to help with these fees to make it less volatile. So like, for example, the fee for the curb cuts and the taps, I forgot the exact term of that fee that Scott presented that got moved to a formula. You know, that changes to where it was a flat fee of $1,500. And now it's a formula that includes all cost and labor. So it's going from $1,500 to $1,500. What could end up being $5,000, you know, beforehand builders could plan for that expense. And now they don't know.

As a person who owns a construction company and as a person who does residential and commercial real estate development, I also shoulder the burdens of those costs. And when you go into a construction project, you don't know any of your costs. They're all variable. And you go in and look at the project, project by project, and you pay engineers out of your pocket to help you do that. So what we try to do is be transparent and work with Temple Area Builders Association so that they, as representatives of all the builders in the area, can give us feedback. And when we first rolled out, a lot of

All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Passes six to one. Item 5, ratify the increase in total property tax revenue as reported in the fiscal year 2027 annual budget for the city of Belton, Texas. I will say that last year's budgetary was $1,194,804, or 9.13% is an increase in revenue from last year. Mr. Rogers.

All right. Again, we've gone through this multiple times. Any comments, questions, or the chair would entertain a motion?

tighter next year let's say I you know my view on raising taxes period is that it should only be done when there's no other way we can do it and you know currently I want to say for me if I were to vote for a tax increase I want to be able to go to my constituents and say that we tried everything to not raise taxes But I don't feel like that's been done. I think there are multiple, as you mentioned, solutions that could help us not raise taxes. You know, when we're raising revenue by 9.13%, you know, $1.19 million, you know, A good chunk of that is burdened by our current citizens. That's not

I'll just as a point of order, when we're talking about policy, we need to restrict our discussion about the current revenue being raised and not other policy decisions, because there's other governance and documents governing anything about economic development. That's a different discussion. We're not here to debate. economic development we're just here about the fiscal year 2027 annual budget if you want to make it a point that it's somewhere else but as we get into policy we need to post meetings about that kind of stuff and so we really need to limit our discussion about this year's budge

And so I also believe that it's worth looking at our sales tax and our sales tax allocation. Because right now, there's about... Again, sales tax is not this discussion.

It is this discussion. It is not. It is a policy discussion. We're not here to grandstand. I'm not here to grandstand.

You are grandstanding. I'm explaining the position I have for my vote on this item. And I'm explaining to my constituents where I'm coming from when I vote on this.

Are your constituents sitting in this room?

And you live in Belton. I understand. And people up here live in Belton. And they're listening to this recording at some point.

That's what you call grandstanding. It's using an opportunity for this to grandstand about a topic that's not related directly to this.

I'm sorry. I want to finish what I'm saying.

I believe that. We can also look at the sales tax allocation because currently there's around $4 million a year going to the VEDC, which with only expenses of 1.2. So it's just the question of, should we look at how we allocate that to be used on more things that the general fund cover or property tax relief? Not to mention this year, we got $2.4 million from the Brazos River Authority. That $2.4 million has no restrictions legally on it. If we need to raise $1.19 million, that money can be used to cover that cost and not have to raise taxes. And so I don't believe, I believe there are many ot

Anyone else? This item is not about the tax rate and it's not to adopt the budget. It's simply to ratify that the budget that's been proposed would raise more revenue. Okay. I make a motion to ratify the increase in total property tax revenues reported in the 2027 budget. Second.

We have a motion and a second to ratify that the budget being adopted is more than the budget from last year. Okay.

Any other comments or questions about the amount of money we're raising?

All right. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Okay. I will just say from a point of order, it's just a number higher than last year, not how it got there. So, understandable. it's it's no it's just it's just ratify it's just the number now we're going to get into the next parts which is more to what your comments had to say all three of these items six item six is consider an ordinance adopting the fiscal year 2027 annual budget for the city of belton mr rogers

Right. So again, we've seen this and heard this and have had inputs on the details of the expenses and the revenues. And I will say for the right that the staff has been very responsive to the request when it came to revenue or expenses and what we could do to get this as close to last year's tax rate as possible. But this is the budget portion, not the tax rate portion that will come in the next thing. So because we've gone through that again, the chair would entertain a motion or any comments.

We have a motion and a second to adopt the fiscal year 2027 annual budget for the city of Belton. Yeah. Any comments or questions before we do a roll call?

Any other right? Miss Casey, we'll do roll call.

All right. All right. Passes unanimously. Thank you very much. 6-1. I'm sorry. 6-1. Sorry. My brain is on autopilot. Item 7. Consider an ordinance adopting the 2026 ad valorem tax rate not to exceed .5619 per $100 of taxable value. Mr. Rogers.

All right. Again, we've discussed this. This is primarily a calculation based on what the budget is. And again, like my colleague here, John, had said was, you know, if we end up getting more revenues from, you know, interest rates or what Daniel said, more expenses. We don't know what that is, but this is a calculation based on the budget. So any comments, questions or the chair would entertain a motion.

I'll just make a quick comment that I, you know, in the past three or four years, we've really seen appraisals shoot through the roof and people have really burdened a big tax, you know, tax payment based on that. And so I think we should do everything we could to not raise taxes. And I think there are ways we could do no new revenue and be able to accomplish that.

And this tax rate would be a decrease in both the average and the median homestead taxpayers' tax bill.

Right. But that's just one little sliver of all the different people. And there's an extra $1.2 million that are going to be almost a 10% increase that's going to be burdened by our citizens, our constituents. Someone's paying that money.

Not the value of the home. Whether they went up in appraisals or down in appraisals, it's just our rate goes up. So therefore, the total number. It's just a math question. Just like the first one was just a math question. Did it go up? Yes or no? Okay. And this one is a math answer.

The budget is the tension of how much to tax versus how much to give in services. And you increase services.

We have a motion and a second to adopt the tax rate of $56.19 per 100. Any other comments or questions before we vote?

Yeah, I will say when I joined the council, we were 82, 83 cents per 100. We've gone from 82 or 83, also one of the highest in the regions to now being one of the lowest in the regions, if not the lowest. I think Harker Heights may win that this year. And so one of the things we've always said as we've gone down on the tax rate is that if we have to, we'll go up if we need to. From a secure your position, if you want to just keep doing the same rate year after year, it would be easier because you could always say, hey, we've always kept our tax rate the same. But as Luke mentioned, our apprais

Aye. All right. That passes again. Vote of 6-1. And that concludes our council meeting at 6-10. We're adjourned.