City Council - Regular Meeting

I want to welcome everyone out to the Sachse City Council meeting. Today is Monday, June 15, 2026. The time is, Granger?

6.30 p.m.

The time is 6.30 p.m. We are called to order. Next item on the agenda is Item 2, Invocation and Pledges of Allegiance. I've asked Mayor Pro Tem Franks to offer the invocation and Ms. Howarth to lead our pledges. If you will please rise.

Please pray with me. Dear Lord, thank you for allowing us to gather this evening as we make plans for the city's future. Allow us to hear each other's voice, listen to each other, and make the best decisions for our future. I always ask that you look out for all the city's employees and all the military members throughout the world. And just give us the ability to hear each other and respect each other as we discuss the items presented before us tonight. Thank you for allowing us to gather. and enjoy each other's company tonight. Amen.

Please join me in the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Honor the Texas flag.

I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible.

I think you may be seated. Next item on the agenda is item B, recognition. Our first item under recognition is for Michaela Horman, the junior mayor of the day in Sachse. Unfortunately, she was not able to attend tonight, so we will reschedule that at a future meeting. Therefore, the next item on the agenda is item two, present a proclamation recognizing the City of Sachse Finance Department's efforts for achieving the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award from the Government Finance Officers Association. If I could get Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Nance to join me down front. All right, so we're going to see more of these gentlemen a little bit later tonight. But before we do that, we want to take a moment and recognize our great finance department. As we've said many times, they are our award-winning finance department. And this is just another reassurance of that. And so we just want to take a moment and recognize the fact that they are an award-winning department and read the proclamation into the record recognizing that. Whereas the Government Finance Officers Association, GFOA, advances excellence in government finance by providing best practices, professional development, resources, and practical research for more than 29,500 members in the communities they serve. Whereas the GFOA is pleased to announce that the City of Sachse, Texas has received the Association's Distinguished Budget Presentation Award for the 14th consecutive year. I'll say that one again, 14th consecutive year. Whereas the award represents a significant achievement by the entity reflecting the commitment of the governing body and staff to meeting the highest principles of governmental budgeting. And whereas to receive the budget award, the entity had to satisfy nationally recognized guidelines for effective budget presentations designed to assess how well an entity's budget serves as a policy document, a financial plan, an operations guide, and a communications device. And whereas award recipients have pioneered efforts to improve the quality of budgeting and provide an excellent example of other governments throughout North America. Now, therefore, I, Jeff Bickerstaff, Mayor of the City of Sachse, do hereby recognize and congratulate the efforts and achievement of the Sachse Finance Department as being primarily responsible for having achieved this distinguished budget presentation award. Congratulations, gentlemen. Thank you.

Okay, thanks.

Take the other mic off. They always say, oh, you're not live. The mic is always live, as they always say. Okay, next item on the agenda is item C, public comment. The public is invited to address counsel regarding any topic not already on the agenda for action or public hearing. Comments regarding the consent agenda or any discussion-only items on the agenda may be addressed during the public comment section. The time limit is three minutes per speaker. A public comment card shall be presented to the city secretary prior to the meeting. According to the Texas Open Means Act, council is prohibited from discussing any item not posted on the agenda, but will take the comments under advisement. I do have one card, Robert Harris. Mr. Harris, if you'll come to the mic, state your name and city of residence.

The last meeting, I addressed the city council for my concerns. Number one, my disabilities are not being addressed, which I've pursued to Logan, whatever, the municipal judge, all that. But anyway, I guess I need help with a permit because I've gone eight times to your permit department to build me a building that I can use on my property, an acre and three-quarter out in a residential area that is full of large plots and had not gotten one. And there's all kinds of just excuses that I say, just for a pole barn. We're not talking nothing with electricity, nothing with plumbing, nothing. Just a pole barn, screen shelter, something that I can get my things in that will get my wife and the city off my back, that enjoy my life. I turned 71 this month, and I'm trying to enjoy my retirement, and I can't. I can't sleep at night because I've got a court order that I've got to demolish and remove my primary residence on my property by court order of the city of Sachse, along with everything else that I own has got to be removed from my property, and it's just... I don't understand. I just really don't understand freedom, liberty, justice. I just, I, I, I don't understand. And, uh, so, um, I need help with that. I, I, if you want a structural engineer for a pole barn or lean to, I, I, I guess I need help because I've, I've, I've, I've gave it to a structural engineer and, uh, They're so busy doing other things that, no, they didn't do it. And so I called other structural engineers. And I sent them the stuff. They don't want to do it. And then I've even got a structural engineer from Coralette come out. And thinking he's a structural engineer, well, he's a foundation engineer. Well, he wanted $600 cash to do the foundation. So I paid him $600 cash. It's not that I don't want to. It's just I can't find people that will do your demands for what I need. So anyway, so I had to stop him doing that because your people said, no, I can't use containers, even though if I make them look like the neighbor's barn with our panel or whatever, I can't do that. And I can't use trailers. I can't do, you know, I get containers. Your emails, I can't use trailers. I can only have three trailers. They can't be over 32 foot long. It's just all these requirements. Mr. Harris, your time has expired.

They're just, my life is not within that box.

Your time is expired.

Time's off?

Yes.

Okay, I'm sorry.

That's good. Thank you, Mr. Harris. That's all the comment cards I have. The next item on the agenda is item D, council staff reports and updates. Item one, report on public comment from the June 1st, 2026 city council meeting. There were no public comments at that meeting, so I do not have anything to report. Next item on the agenda is item D2, mayor and city council announcements regarding special events, current activities, and local achievements. Anyone on council would like to address the audience at this time?

Mr. Prestenburg. Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Before we proceed, is there any way we can get his address? He didn't announce it. So, yeah, thanks. All right. I have some animal shelter announcements I'd like to share. Featured pet this meeting is Cosmo. I'm not sure if you've seen Seinfeld, but Cosmo is not the same one. Cosmo spent 288 days at the shelter. Nearly his entire young life, at almost a year old, he has grown up watching other dogs come and go. And through it all, he has remained soft, hopeful, and eager to love. He deserves a turn. There he is. He's a cutie. He's timid and needs a moment to feel safe, but once he understands that you are kind, he will begin to bloom. If you'd like to set up some time with him and maybe take him for a walk, contact the Sachse Animal Shelter at 972-675-9662 to schedule a meet and greet. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Presserberg. Ms. Buehler.

Good evening, everyone. I have some parks and recreation announcements. Teens are invited to journey into Middle Earth on Monday, June 29th from 7 to 9 p.m. for a Lord of the Rings themed teen night featuring themed games. activities, and snacks inspired by the fellowship's legendary journey. Registration is required. Please call 469-429-0275 or use activity number 7362 on our website. Also, calling all Swifties, it's time to enter your Mahjong era. Teens ages 13 to 18 are invited to learn American Mahjong in a beginner-friendly series running Thursdays from July 9th through July 23rd from 4 to 6 p.m. Because the swiftest one to Mai Jong wins, participants will gain new skills, make new friends, and enjoy fun giveaways each session. The cost is $90. To register, call 469-429-0275 or use activity number 7485. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Buehler. Mr. Millsap. Okay, for the library. The summer reading program, obviously, is in full force right now. It actually is on record, on pace to have a record participation year. And I think that's really neat. And it's for kids, teens, and adults. So if you're interested, it's not too late to join. So be sure and join the, contact the library and get involved in it. Reading send-off party at the end of the season will be Friday, July the 31st from 10 a.m. to noon. So if you're interested in it for details of the reading challenge and summer performance, just contact the city's website, the library city website. Also, a make-and-mingle shrinking charms is another one of the hobbies that's starting up. And Wednesday, which is the day after tomorrow, at 6 to 7.30, the adults 18 and older are invited for their monthly make-and-mingle Wednesday, June the 17th from 6 to 7.30 again in Building C. So if you're interested in making shrinking charms using plastic shrinking methods, be sure and participate in it.

Thank you, Mr. Millsap. Other announcements from council? Hearing none, Ms. Nash.

Mayor and Council, I don't have any new hires to announce at this time, but I do have a core values recognition of excellence. I would like to recognize our communications business partner, Esther Weaver, for receiving the Award of Honor for Best Small Shop at the Annual Texas Association of Municipal Information Officers, or TAMEO Awards. So the Best Small Shop Award recognizes overall communications achievement by teams of one to two people, in a city's main communications office. To be considered, candidates must work across four of six possible categories, demonstrating a broad range of skills from campaign planning and digital media to social media engagement and internal communications. Preparing a submission is no small undertaking. It is, in effect, four separate award submissions in one, each requiring its own documentation and supporting materials. ESSER has been growing and building this communications function here in Sachse for the past two and a half years. And this recognition is a reflection of the quality and range of work that she brings to this organization every day. And we are very proud of her and grateful to have her on our team. Congratulations, Esther.

And that's all I had, Mayor. Not the first award Esther has won, by the way, since she's been here. So congratulations, Esther. I have a couple announcements. The June 13th general election runoff was this past Saturday, and I want to thank everyone that came out to vote. Voting is a very important part of our republic, and so I wanted to take a moment and say thank you for participating in our local elections. The unofficial winner of place for seat is Tim LaPage. These results will be canvassed at a special meeting on Tuesday, June 23rd, so a week from tomorrow. At that point, once the votes are canvassed, then Tim will take the oath of office at a special meeting on Wednesday, June 24th. So just for clarification, we will canvas the meeting on the 23rd, excuse me, canvas the votes on the 23rd, and have the special meeting to square Tim in on the 24th, which is next Wednesday. Immediately prior to the June 24th meeting, we will have a reception for our outgoing council member, Mr. Lindsey, for his years of dedicated service to the city of Sachse. More details as we get a little closer to that, but approximately 5.30-ish before the meeting on the 24th, which starts at 6.00. So chance, you got to show up for that. Next is a budget and burgers. We're going to talk about the budget here in just a few minutes, but we're also going to have another engagement on Thursday, June 25th. And that's where I will be at our world famous Saxy Water Burger on June 25th, Thursday at 6 p.m. for budget and burgers. Now, this is just a casual opportunity for residents to come by and ask questions. We don't have a formal program. We don't have a formal presentation. I'll be there. Staff will be there to just answer questions. So if you have a question about the budget and you don't like coming to the meetings to ask those questions or email us or anything like that, I would encourage you to come out to Whataburger, not this coming Thursday, but next Thursday, the 25th at 6 p.m. And we'll have nothing but fun budget talk. So I would encourage you to come out then. If you want more information about that, you can look at our social media and also visit our website at cityofsaxe.com. Now, speaking of award-winning recognitions, I want to take a moment and recognize our wonderful city secretary, Leah Granger. So she is the recipient, well, I should say one of 42 recipients statewide that has been named the Texas Municipal Clerk's Office Achievement of Excellence Award by the Texas Municipal Clerk's Associations. And so that is an excellent honor award. I have been around many city secretaries in my career. And that is something that is a very distinguished honor. So I want to take a moment and recognize Leah for getting that honor. Like I said, there's only 42 recipients statewide. And I can tell you, there's a lot more than 42 city secretaries. I promise you that. And just to give you an idea of what the award recognizes, it recognizes a municipal clerk across the state that meets the statutory requirements and standards necessary to fulfill the duties of the office, including records management, government transparency, elections, the Open Meetings Act, the Public Information Act, and more. Now, to qualify for this, you have to meet at least nine to 12 standards. And so this recognition reflects a high standard of professionalism and service that Leah brings to her role every day. Leah?

Congratulations.

All right. So this is award-winning announcements, it's going to seem like. So it's right down there, but Sachse was recognized with the North Central Texas Council of Government's Mike Eastland Regional Cooperation Award. Now, to be fair, we did share this with a couple of our neighbors, neighboring cities. But we were presented with this award at the luncheon this past Friday at the annual meeting. And again, this was presented to the North Texas Water District and its partner cities, which we're one of those, and their consultants for solving a decades-long regional water rate challenge. I want to recognize our own city manager here, Gina Nash, for her instrumental role in this effort. Gina served on a working group that represented the customer cities in the North Texas, represented the customer cities with the North Texas Water District to help bring together that collaboration. and made the solution possible. And I promise you, some of the details from those meetings, these were not fun, exciting meetings, I promise. But they were very important because, as we know, water has always been a challenge in this region. And the fact that we could come together, along with our partner cities, and get an agreement that works for everybody is a major, major compliment. And it's very rewarding that the North Central Texas Council of Governments recognized our efforts, along with our partner cities' efforts. in a collaboration effort. And you don't always see that sometimes. So I want to take a moment to say thank you, Gina, for your leadership and the role you played in this and for this award, as you see on the screen. And thank you, Gina, very much for your help getting that award. Last but not least. Okay, Gina, you got to come down here. Got one more award.

I figured if my family was here, so...

Okay. So I took the mic off, because I thought I was done, and then I looked at the agenda, I go, I'm not done. Okay, family. Come on down. Okay, so I have talked about this before. And it was sort of in passing, because we knew we were going to recognize Gina in a special way this meeting. So we didn't tell her that. And she hates that. So sorry, not sorry. So if you missed it last time, Ms. Nash was awarded the 2026 Administrator of the Year Award for the Texas City Management Association, Administrator of the Year for 2026. So we want to take a moment, well, I guess I should, I know you've already seen it, but, and we want to take a moment and recognize Gina formally for this award that she received. She will also be president of TCMA. Vice president this year, president next year. I already got you promoted. So she has done amazing work, not just here at the city of Sachse, but also with her fellow colleagues as part of the Texas City Management Association. So we just want to take a moment. We want to have your husband. and your mom come help celebrate and we got a little something for you flower wise and we just want to take this moment and say thank you for being here thank you for being our city manager and we appreciate all the efforts you have done in the almost 11 years you've been here and we look forward to many more things great things to come so gina thank you so much for being our city manager thank you for being a great city manager and we're so glad you're here

Does somebody need to hold that or no? Okay. Yeah, sure. Okay.

No, I want to hear from mom.

That's why we want to hear from her.

No, normally I am a person who doesn't like to be in front of this or speaking, um, about myself, but here's what I want to say about this award. That's really, really important. I would not have received this award if it wasn't for the support of my family. I have incredible parents. My father, God rest his soul, passed 10 years ago last week. And when I was receiving that award and thinking about him at that moment, it was pretty incredible because I wouldn't have been up there without that because my dad always believed I could do anything anybody else could do but better. And my mom has always been my number one fan. But the one who is silent always behind the scenes on this is my husband, David. You all have no idea the amount of support that it takes For the spouse of a city manager so a city manager can do their job We can't do what we do without the support of that person with us all the time I wouldn't be a mom of three kids if it wasn't for him supporting me and being able to do this career and have a family He has always been the one quietly behind the scenes supporting me encouraging me and loving me and For that, I am forever indebted to you, David Nash, because I wouldn't be here doing this incredible work without you. Thank you.

Meeting adjourned. No, I'm just kidding. I do want to take a quick moment and say thank you to her staff because they are so sneaky. So Ms. Rose and Ms. Mata, who helped me plan all this, so don't get them in trouble. But they were very instrumental in getting the surprise for you. And thank you, Mr. Nash, for coming. Thank you, Mom, for coming. Not my mom. And appreciate you being part of this very special moment. And like I said, as Ms. Nash said, She would not be up here without you. So thank you very much for letting her do this job. All right. Again, thank you, Ms. Nash, for all that you do. Next item on the agenda is item D, the consent agenda. Item 1, approve the June 1st, 2026 meeting minutes. Item 2, accept the monthly revenue expenditure report for the period ending April 30th, 2026. Anyone on council would like to remove any item off the consent agenda? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion.

Mayor President Franks. Mr. Mayor, I make a motion that we approve E... Item number e or letter e as president or consent agenda.

Yeah, all the above. Yeah, thank you Most of my mr. Excuse me mayor Pro Tem Frank's to approve the consent agenda as presented to have a second miss Buehler Second second by miss Buehler any further discussion Hearing none, please cast your ballot Motion carries unanimously Next item on the agenda is item F, action items. Item one, consider authorizing the city manager to approve and execute a change order number two for Bailey Road reconstruction BP-21-B01 in an amount not to exceed $494,012.59. Ms. Nash.

Mayor and council, I'm excited for us to be able to present this change order to you, mostly because it means that the project is winding down. And it is just about to end. And so Corey will walk you through the details of what was considered in this change order and kind of next steps and how we'll be wrapping up this project.

Hello, Mr. Nesbitt. Good evening, Mayor, Council. Yes, as Mr. Nesbitt said, this is the final change order, last project wrap up for this project here. So we'll go through some background, location, and all that stuff. We'll kind of break down the change order for everybody, explain some of the funding stuff, and the next steps. Again, just for everybody's education, this is the location of the Bailey Road project from 78 to Sachse Road. It includes a small portion of Hooper Road as well. Again, this was the first project we did with the 2021 bond election. This was approved in August 5th of 2024. It's approximately 506,000 feet of Bailey and Hooper Road. 36 feet wide concrete street with traffic calming measures Sidewalks and trails have been provided and we also improved the water and sewer infrastructure If you remember last summer we came to you with the change or number one that was for the emergency water line repair We actually have a 18 inch water line break at Saxia Road, and so we had to make the emergency repair on that project change order to which is what you're seeing tonight. This is the final cleanup of all the kind of miscellaneous budget items in the project. And so this revises material and labor quantities, again, associated with the changes to the project. Briefly, this includes six, eight, and 16-inch water line. We had to do some additional pipe and some fittings. We had added FTC to the daycare. Again, service lines, valves, stuff like that. Again, additional 18- and 21-inch concrete drainage pipe and headwalls were required to address some of the drainage issues with removing the bar ditch. And again, this includes signage, striping. We had additional concrete paving. We had additional sidewalks. additional mailboxes, decorative concrete. Again, all the things to complete the project. And the last item is the additional block sign to clean up the erosion control stuff. The original contract time was 365 days. We issued a notice to proceed in October of 2024. The original contract substantial completion was October 29th. Time for change order one was 15 days We had some delays due to atmosphere relocation that was approximately 49 days Total weather delays for the project was a hundred and one days And then again the time of order for change order two was 75 minutes So that's the additional concrete work additional water line repairs we had to do to that nature and again anticipated substantial completion day is June 26, which they're 99% there right now and Just a summary of the project funding. Again, original contract was $10.9 million. Change order one was $123,000. This change order is for $494,000. Again, the revised contract and final amount is $11.6 million. And again, one of the benefits of doing these is one bond proposition for West Creek, Williford, and Bailey Road is all those funds can be used interchangeably for each project. And again, so with the project savings we had from West Creek, we're going to be able to fund this change order. And again, the bond 2021 language we talked about. Again, so this was in the actual proposition that the voters selected. Again, where it outlines the three road projects in Proposition B. Again, we intentionally designed the language for flexibility if there were overruns and underruns with these three roads. And yes, so the city is able to take advantage of the cost savings with the West Creek project And with that happy to answer any questions Thank You mr. Nesbitt questions or comments from council Mayor Pro Tem Franks

Savings of West Creek so we're able to cover this but we also did an additional project Pipe bursting on West Creek so both the savings gonna cover both of them. Yes, correct. That's all you want to know.

Thanks Other questions or comments from council Thank you, mr. Nesbitt, sir, I don't have any speakers cards for this item So with that I will turn it back to council for more discussion or motions. I Mr. Lindsay.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, if there is no further discussion, I'd like to make a motion to approve item F1 as presented.

I have a motion by Mr. Lindsay to approve item F1 as presented. Do I have a second? Ms. Howard?

Second.

Second by Ms. Howard. Any further discussion? Hearing none, please cast your ballot. Motion carries with Mr. Millsap voting no. Next item on the agenda is item G, discussion items. Item one, discuss the fiscal year 2026-2027 preliminary budget and provide feedback. Ms. Nash.

Mayor and council, as we've talked about, as we've been preparing for the budget this year, our process this year is going to be a little bit different in that typically we've had, at least for the last 11 years, We've had our budget workshop shortly after we received our assessed valuations for property from our appraisal districts. And so we would have all of our corrected numbers, and we would be able to present you with a balanced budget. This year, as you know, we decided to take a different approach and present you with a draft budget, which we are going to do tonight. We do not have the finalized assessed valuation numbers. But this was really an opportunity with feedback that we received from council to be able to have more time for residents to be able to weigh in on the budget. And so what you'll see tonight is our first iteration of our budget based on what we know right now. And then as you know, we will receive our final values shortly after July 25th. And then we'll be able to present you with more of a finalized budget at your meeting on August the 3rd. This gives plenty of time for the public to be able to provide input on the budget and for you all to be able to provide input to us. As the mayor brought up, budget and burgers next week, so there will be a lot of opportunities for people to be able to weigh in. So this is really our opportunity to give you all a first look. So we'll be dividing the presentation up tonight. David Baldwin will give part of the presentation, Lauren Rose will give part, and I will give part, hopefully to make this as exciting as we possibly can. as we dive into the numbers. So, uh, with that mayor, I will turn it over to David Baldwin to start.

Well, what are you talking about? Mr. Baldwin is always a life of the party. What are you talking about? I could dance, but I figure I'd fall off the mic. And so I'll just stay, try and stay planted. I think the subjects is, is exciting enough. Mayor and Council, good evening. The budget discussion began on June 1st with the early resident input and stakeholder input on the budget, and we continue this evening with the budget workshop on the preliminary budget. As Ms. Nash spoke, we'll have a financial update. I will provide that. We'll have a presentation on budget realities and then the preliminary budget. As a reminder, Residence Council, everyone can go to www.cityofsaxe.com forward slash budget. There's information on how to engage in the budget process at that site. Also now newly uploaded is the preliminary budget that we'll be discussing this evening. So We might be referencing page numbers. The page numbers in the binders that were provided for you, council, are the same page numbers that are in the budget document here, that residents, that everyone can download and see for themselves. OK, on to the financial update. All right. The first thing to look at is our general fund revenues. So how does the pie look for the general fund? Answer kind of the same as it has looked. We remain healthy. Our largest tax revenue is property taxes in at 61%. That has ranged over the years from 57% to 64%, again, at 61% right now. Our second largest Share of that pie is sales tax at 11%. That's ranged from 9% to 12% throughout the years. Rounding out our taxes is franchise taxes at 8% of that pie. The total pie being 80% of our revenues come from property taxes, sales taxes, and franchise fees. Shown here is 2025 collections. We show 2025. That's fiscal year 2024-2025. And that is because that year is the last completed year. So this reflects one full year of collections where we collected $29 million. Looking at a snapshot of the general fund, right now through the month of April, if we spent every month evenly, then we would be at 58% spent through the year. But of course, there's seasonality. There's reasons for spikes in spending. For instance, property tax, shown there on the first line, that's due much earlier in the calendar year. And so we're 100% collected at this point. You can use it as a rule of thumb that we should be around 58% for many things, but it's not necessarily a cause for alarm if we fall above or below that marker. Going down the line, sales tax is a pleasant surprise. We're at 60% collected so far. Year-to-date collections are 9% over where we were at this time last year. Franchise revenue is showing low at 54%. That's really just timing. If we fast-forwarded, so the reason being cable TV receipts, or I'm sorry, gas receipts. If you fast-forward to May, we received another quarterly report or payment, and we're at 90% collected. So again, it's just a lot of it is due to timing. Looking at the next line of where we're at through April, Collections for licenses and permits are at 35% and the the main reason for that is building permits. We have a hundred and one thousand dollars collected on a three hundred and fifty thousand dollar budget for building permits So we're a hundred thousand dollars below our pace again. That could be a timing issue And so we'll keep an eye on that the same thing under fees with plan review fees We're $26,000 collected on a $200,000 budget. That's $90,000 below our pace. We'll keep an eye on that. Looking at expenditures, we're 59% spent. A lot of that reasoning is due to contracts that just were paid out earlier in the year, pushing our percent spend higher at this point in time in the year. Moving on to assessed property values. This includes property values for the whole city. It includes our tax increment reinvestment zone. It excludes freeze values. But what you see here is that it's going up. It typically goes up over this time period from 2019 to 2026 of about a little over 10% per year of average growth. The growth line is shown in yellow or gold there. What you can see is since 2023 that growth has declined, but it's right now at about 5%. still remaining positive growth historically and 5% at this point. Looking again at sales tax revenues, our total sales tax rate in Sachse is eight and a quarter. The state takes 6.25% and the city has 2% of that. That's broken up between the general fund, economic development, street maintenance and municipal development as shown in the various colors. You can see that year to date collections are again nine percent collected and that trend continues to what we've collected so far through June. So still sales tax numbers coming in strong. Our general fund projection for 2026 shows all the way to the far right, that gold bar. We're projecting over $3.2 million of collections on a $3,080,000 budget. Overall, that whole bar, we're projecting $6.5 million on a $6.17 million budget. So sales tax as our second largest revenue is strong. And if we kind of stretch the trends out and look at 2027 and for the next three years, we've made some assumptions. We've looked at taxable values, and we assume that that's going to continue to drop just a little bit down to 4% annual growth in the future. That sales tax will be conservative and show less growth than we're seeing right now at 4%. All other revenues we're projecting at 3% growth. On the expenditure side, we're excluding any supplemental requests in this preliminary budget. So this is just that base budget. Health expense, we're growing that at 10% in all of the out years and all other expenses at 3% annually. And what it shows is a delta of about $300,000 to $400,000 per year and growing. So we have some room there for later in the budget process to determine what to do. with that excess. Looking at our projections of the general fund balance, Policy is that the target level of general fund unassigned reserves should be between 25% and 35%. And through our projections from 2024 all the way up through current estimates in this budget year show that we fall within that range. All the way to the far right, our current estimates are, first of all, that the 25% range, that lower bar of where our ending fund balance should be, is at $8,060,000. That 35% policy is $11.29 million. But what I'm showing there is that our fund balance with current estimates is $8.9 million. So again, right within that range that council has set. Moving on to our other operating fund, the utility fund. Again, it's a snapshot in time. It's showing through April, which you'd think that we'd be about 58% spent for the year. Water revenues are a little lower than that straight line assumed growth through the year. But of course, there's seasonality to water. More water is used in the summer months, which we haven't quite hit through April. Sewer drainage revenue at 61%. And then drainage revenue. I'm sorry, sewer revenue at 61% and drainage revenue at 158%. And that is because we had that recent rate study. NewGen came up here. We updated our drainage rates. We did not update the budget for that, so it's showing us overperforming. Other revenue includes interests and transfers, and that's coming along right as we'd expect. So the utility fund, again, showing us healthy, showing overall as planned. Moving now to a 3 year look on the utility fund operations these a lot of the rates provided here were from new gen they provided in 2024 a rate study we're showing from that rate still study water rates growing at 7% per year sewer rates at 2% per year. For expense assumptions, we are earlier in the year, and so we don't yet have letters from Garland Sewer, from North Texas Municipal Water District to tell us their estimated rates. So we are plugging in the assumed rates from NewGen, from our rate consultants, of 12% growth to the water in 27 and 28, 10% in the out years. Garland, we have a rate growing at 5% and consumption, when you add in consumption, growing at 6%. That gap there is about $4 million. What typically happens with that gap is we fund capital projects. Looking at our property tax rate history, it shows from 2021 to 2026. The gold line there is the no new revenue rate. That's the rate that generates the same amount of revenues from property tax that is taxed in both years. The green-blue aqua bar there is the voter approval rate. And that's the highest tax rate that a taxing unit may adopt without holding an election to seek voter approval of the rate. So that red line is the approved rate that we've had over the years. You can see that it's always below the voter approval rate by the excess showing there for 23, 24, through 25, 26. And some years, it actually even falls below the no new revenue rate. The rate that we've had for a number of years is an M&O rate. I'll kind of average it out. It's about $0.45. I'll say it that way. With an INS or debt rate of $0.19, giving Sachse a total rate of about $0.65. And then looking at our debt capacity, the big area showing in dark is the outstanding debt and principal and interest. The gold line up to the top going to the upper right is the debt levy, that point or that 19 cents. If you apply that to our estimated taxable value going forward, then that white gap expands as we go out. That white gap is explained by the red line, which is the debt service capacity. So as we pay off old debt, as taxable value increases, then keeping the same INS tax rate nets some debt capacity there. So there is a gap growing. You can see that drop. from 26 to 27. That is the 2015 GO bonds that were recently, was it bonds or COs, I'm drawing a blank right now, the COs that we've paid off. So that gap there, Jason Hughes was here at the last council meeting and spoke to there is an opportunity for councils, should you choose, to follow the calendar and to issue new CEOs, keeping the tax rate the same, but being able to fund additional items. With that, that's the financial update. Are there any questions?

Mayor, President Franks, do you want to ask your question now or after the whole presentation?

Then go right ahead. During the slide, but I didn't know if we were doing slides or when that part was over. The mic is yours. All right, sir. So on slide five, general fund year to date, our sales tax. So traditionally, our sales tax is greatest in the fourth quarter, which is our first quarter, essentially, of our budget. But we're only 60%. So what have we, and it's collected quarterly, correct?

No, monthly. Is it? Okay. Yeah. Monthly with spikes in the quarter because people report, some report monthly, some report quarterly. So what month is this through? This is, we've received through June. This is showing, let's see, let's slide five. What we're showing you is through April.

Okay.

I figured. So it says only 60%.

But I would have thought typically it's more. Maybe it's about 70. Maybe it's about 60% this time of year. But I know that that November, December time frame, that's where everybody spends a lot of money on Christmas. So we get a lot more on those that quarter typically.

Yeah, so what this is is February activity. February activity, there's a 60 day delay. Okay.

Yeah, that's what I was wondering how late it was on the report, right?

So what we see in April is February activity. However, compared to last year, we're 9% collected greater than we were at this point last year.

Okay. And then on slide 12, just a comment, not a question. When I started in 2012, we were, I think, 77 cents per $100. And if 14 years later, we're at $0.65, so don't say we haven't lowered taxes. And then the other one is just a comment on collected versus realistic on property taxes. I've asked the city manager several times over the years about a homestead exemption in the city. And that has become increasingly more difficult as the state is capping our taxable values and what we can raise, what we can collect in taxes every year. So if they wouldn't have done that, I think we surely could have done that by now. But House Bill 2 a couple of years ago didn't help that. So that's all I have. Thanks.

Okay. Any questions for this part of the presentation? We've got two more segments. So if you don't have questions, you'll definitely have an opportunity to ask them as we move on. So I just want to make sure. Okay, I don't see any. So with that, Ms. Rose. No, I'm not soliciting questions, I promise. Hello, Ms. Rose.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. It feels like we were just up here talking about last year's budget. So for my portion of the conversation tonight, we'll talk about the budget realities, and we'll talk about a couple different areas. We'll go over revenues, talk about cost recovery, and then we'll go over your strategic priorities. So revenues from development projects have not yet arrived. We've got a couple things that are hanging in the balance there, and that's straining some of the funds available to support base budgets. As you know, our central appraisal districts, Dallas Central and Collin Central, notified the city that values are down across the board. And we are still waiting to see what those look like when we get those July delivery dates. Additionally, changes at the state legislature, which you all are aware of, and in property tax policy have impacted the revenues that the city receives. While really unfortunate, these are changes that we have anticipated, and so we've made adjustments along the way. David showed you the difference between the no new revenue rate, our tax rate, the voter approval rate, et cetera. So you'll see in this budget that we've made programmatic changes and we're looking at policy changes as a result to make sure that we're keeping pace with This changing environment to make sure that the city remains in a good position And then in addition existing values are maintaining But the new values are declining our growth curve is slowing we knew this was going to happen at a certain point and so this is really the first year where we're going to have to start to pivot and Look at new ways of doing things As a friendly reminder, Ms. Nash mentioned this at the beginning of her presentation, but this is a very different budget process than what we've done in the past. Historically, we wait to talk to you guys until we have all of the information available. and can present you a proposed budget. That doesn't leave a lot of time for conversation and discussion about some of the things ahead of us throughout the process. So we're flipping the script a little bit. We're starting much earlier, which means we don't have all the numbers finalized. But think of this as the start of a conversation. We're six weeks earlier than we were last year. presenting this information to you these numbers are going to change a little bit as we get more information from the appraisal districts as we refine our internal numbers so it's a little bit of a moving target but it's intended to be the opening the door of a conversation if you will we'll return to you all at the end of July and early August with our proposed budget as required by the Charter once we have the certified values from both of the appraisal districts So this is probably not something you all are excited about, but cost recovery is an important tool that cities use to cover costs. Cities typically have cost recovery policies that are established by the city council. They typically come in several categories, including full cost recovery, partial cost recovery, and no cost recovery. And those are outlined there. Cities typically set the recovery type by the benefit provided to the resident, guest, or patron. And they often set different rates for residents versus non-residents. It's also important to note that some services, such as water, wastewater treatment, trash and recycling, reflect pass-through costs. So those aren't adjusted. They are merely passed on to the user. So the city of Sachse has a cost recovery policy, and that exists in our comprehensive financial management policy, which is approved annually as part of the budget process. Fees for services are then set in the master fee schedule, which we typically discuss with you all later on in the process once the proposed budget is presented, that outline the fees that we're going to charge for different services provided throughout the city in the upcoming year. Historically, the city's philosophy has been to charge as little fees as possible to all of our users, whether that's resident or non-resident. That's been an unwritten policy, so to speak, but the idea is to provide the maximum benefit for the users of our services. However, with declining revenues and the future forecasts that we're seeing, plus higher expectations for service delivery, we're going to have to look at a different approach. I won't read all of this, but this is an excerpt of our actual policy that states the different levels at which we can cover costs at the city. Again, philosophically, the city has erred on the side of not charging fees when we can, but the policy does articulate that we're able to pursue full, partial, or minimal cost recovery. for the services that we provide. The challenge with this current policy is those categories aren't defined. So it can become difficult for staff to target exactly what full cost recovery is versus partial versus minimal. Full cost is pretty obvious, but the partial and minimal can be difficult to define without a clear definition. So what you will see from us coming forward is some new information relative to cost recovery. The council approved the new market cities last year as part of the Baker Tilly compensation classification study. Those are our new comparator cities listed there. And just like we do for the pay plan every year as part of the compensation package, we use these market cities to benchmark ourselves and understand where our policies sit relative to our peers. The city manager's office issued a master fee schedule survey that was distributed to all of our departments. And we sought their input relative to all the fees that they charge compared to our market cities. The manager's office then conducted a review with the departments as part of the internal budget review process. So this is a different way of looking at setting our master fee schedule fees. Typically, departments submit those. We review them. and then we present them to the council. This year we're taking that new approach of benchmarking against those newly established comparator cities to understand the cost recovery and our fees relative to the market. So they were asked to assess each fee category that they charge, and that's a snippet of the survey that they were sent, relative to market alignment. So current fees amounts and the potential new fees that the city could consider. Our survey collected 83 responses across 10 departments and divisions, and we identified the following counts. We had 11 that were above market, 47 that were in line with market, 18 below market, and seven that were not charged but could be warranted. We're in the process of finalizing these recommendations, and we will come to you all as a part of the budget process later this summer with a couple of proposals. both relative to the actual policy side of things, but then also relative to cost recovery. And just to give you an idea of the things that we're looking at, on below market, it's a little small there, but neighborhood services, dangerous building abatement, administrative fee, that is a very time-intensive process for our staff, and the amount of effort that goes in may warrant an additional fee to cover the costs associated in dealing with those problematic properties. In addition, a planned development zoning request, you all are familiar with those. Those are very complicated and they require quite a bit of staff review. We found that our fee that we're charging there is below market compared to our comparator cities. In line with market, of course, those fee categories I discussed with you earlier, the water rates, sewer rates, and other pass-through costs, those are consistent. And then items that are not currently covered, just for examples, these are not necessarily what we're recommending tonight, but roofing and re-roofing permits, the city of Sachse doesn't charge for these permits. Other cities do. Field lighting fees, the city of Sachse does not charge for this. Other cities do. And I think this is a really big one here, a non-resident user fee for the library. We have found anecdotally as of late, As our library services have improved and some of the technology offerings have expanded, we've become very popular and people want to utilize our services. Well, now they're able to utilize those without a fee. And we have residents from all over the state of Texas taking advantage of the services that our residents are paying for. So food for thought and something to consider in the future. As I mentioned previously, we are researching cost recovery models for the council's consideration that are a little bit more robust than what's currently included in the comprehensive financial management policy. The best practices really talk about establishing a defined benefit category and then a defined cadence for review relative to the fee type. A lot of cities do establish tiers for rate levels based on user types and community benefits. As you can imagine, this could get pretty complicated. So we'd want to find something that's scalable and right for SACSI. But as an illustrative up here, we've got a cost recovery model from the city of Plano. And you can see here that they have a spectrum of fees and cost recovery rules that they implement. So ranging from Tier 1, which is a primary community benefit, where the city tries to cover and absorb as many of the costs, all the way to Tier 5, which is a primary individual benefit, where the city passes all of the costs on to the end user. That's just a reference point for your consideration as we continue talking about this. And with that, I will turn it over to Ms. Nash.

Thank you, Ms. Rose. Ms. Nash?

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Lauren. Keeping all of that in mind, again, you all established strategic priorities when we did your city council retreat back in February. And so your primary goal areas were, again, to consider capital needs and infrastructure, maintaining our excellent city services, continuing our fiscal stewardship, and continuing the level of economic development and, of course, expanding that wherever possible. But again, going back and looking at our property tax history of where we are, I think it's important to point this out again. The reason the slide is in here again is that we have been able to maintain, with the exception of 2024, at or below the no new revenue rate, which is quite remarkable given the continued level of services that we have been able to provide to our residents to, again, exceed their expectations in terms of providing excellent government service. And so I think it's just important to point that out again, where we have been in the past with our property tax history. So you all gave clear direction at your strategic planning retreat to me regarding your goals, but also regarding your expectations, the expectations of the community. So in sort of a high level summary, this forthcoming budget, these are the things that will be included. We will have a proposed master fee schedule with revisions aimed at better cost recovery, and we'll be able to show you a model of that when we come back to you. A modest adjustment for employees to maintain the pay plan. What I'm baking into this is either a 3% for general schedule employees or a step for our public safety, including minimal growth in the base. So the growth in the base will more be a function of if Contractual services go up. We don't have a choice. We have to increase that amount If anybody is living in 2026 any service that you have is not typically staying the same price And so we have to bake those into our base budget to maintain again the same level of service that we've had contemplating again a bond package in 2027 per year direction that we've been discussing for the last almost two years and It will include a flat tax rate, so again, keeping the tax rate the same as it is now, but all to maintain continued excellent services for our residents. So not changing any service levels, but maintaining a flat tax rate while being able to, again, compensate our employees and stay on that pay plan. So our forthcoming proposed budget will not include a proposed tax rate increase, but again, the budget theme we have continued to talk about while we discuss strategic planning. But the theme that I've talked about with the staff is it's really our story reimagined. We have made great progress, but we will have to reimagine how we do things going forward again to continue the excellent services that we provide to our residents. So I think the important takeaways through this are a few listed here. Revenues are not as strong as they once were. We knew this was coming. We've been talking about it the last several years. This isn't a surprise. Coupled with rising costs across the board, the city will have to make adjustments and we are evaluating these cost recovery measures through policies and the master fee schedule. But we are clear on the council's direction and we understand the strategic priorities and we will spend the summer working on this budget to continue to make sure and refine it that we will be able to maintain again a flat tax rate. So we will return to the council with this proposed budget once certified values are received and projections are complete. So with that, Mayor, any questions? And then we'll go to the final portion of the presentation.

Thank you, Ms. Nash. Mayor Proctor and Franks.

Okay, so on Lauren, on our fees assessment, I saw there was a mention of library in there. I just want to make sure we're looking at all the park service fees and rentals. Yes, sir. Just making sure. Thanks. Mm-hmm.

Mr. Lindsay. Yeah, whenever I first saw the cost recovery model, you know, the first thought was, as a citizen, is what am I paying taxes for? You know, why are you coming after me for more fees? But after I looked through the presentation and everything, I really liked the EVERYTHING THAT'S THERE. DEFINITELY RECOVERING FEES FOR OUR LIBRARY. THAT'S ATTRACTIVE TO ANOTHER CITY THAT DOESN'T HAVE THAT PART IN THEIR TAX RATE. SO I THINK IT'S ONLY FAIR THAT WE SOMEHOW PASS THOSE USERS. SO AFTER GOING THROUGH THE PRESENTATION, I JUST LOVED EVERYTHING I SAW. I WAS ALSO KIND OF CONCERNED, OH, IS THIS GOING TO GO INTO THE EMS SIDE OF THINGS? you know, very steadfast on just doing balanced billing over there. So I'm glad to see nothing's being proposed to change to any of our EMS services on there. As far as the tax rate, yeah, our tax rate has remained even and it's gone down as council or I'm sorry, Mayor Pro Tem Franks has said over the years. But the fact is, is most people are paying dollar wise more. And most people this year that were under a cap, which was a large portion of the city, that 10 percent, increase that a lot of people are finally coming out of that cap. So despite it being steady for the last several years, most people in Sachse have felt it in their pocketbooks. Forget about the rates or anything else, the check that they write. What I can say to our citizens is whenever you go back and you look at the rate of inflation over the last several years, most residents are paying about the same. It feels like we're paying so much more, myself included, But it levels out. We have to think about inflation. Just around 2020, inflation was about 25%. That's a quarter, a whole 25% more, a fourth of the buying power that you no longer have. So everything has just gone up so much on there. But again, if you look at it with inflation, it really does level out for most people. The homestead exemption, I know I've asked for this in prior years. I really think we need some kind of fact sheet, just something that we can be accountable for to the citizens here that says, look, we've looked at this. Here's why the numbers make sense, or here's where they might make sense. What do we need to achieve in order to reach that threshold to consider a homestead exemption? We also need to remind citizens that the homestead exemption is very powerful on there. I think we listed a few places on our website, but maybe on our communications outreach and things like that, because we give a genuine discount for disabled and over 65. I mean, that's super important. That's shifting the tax burden from regular taxpayers or from those owned to regular taxpayers. So there's a lot of incentives already built in. And at the city level, most cities do not have their own homestead exemption. You still have to be homesteaded in order to get the disability or the tax cap each year, though. But most people, they're like, oh, we don't have a homestead exemption. It doesn't do anything for me. I've helped people file their homestead exemptions just you know, to go to. So once they see the difference, it's meaningful. So there's this perception out there that Homestead doesn't do anything. Sachse doesn't have one. So we just, I think, need to be aggressive and get out in front of it and combat it. What people also need to understand is, you know, if we did some kind of Homestead exemption, like a city bias, there was only, I think, one. I'm not even mentioning their name anymore on there, though. But It's like a token gesture. At the end of the day, it doesn't really change taxes in a meaningful way. So let's say we give 1% tax exemption on there. All you're doing is you're, it's like, fine, your assessed value is lower, but now we've got to raise your tax rate because at the end of the day, it's about the check that you write. At the end of the day, you've got to still pay your firefighters, police officers, all those core services or public works or streets. You need a dollar amount. What you're assessed at doesn't matter. So that's my final ask on my way out. We've got somebody who's appointed to the board, at least in Dallas County, for the Central Appraisal District. Mayor Pro-Tim Franks on there. So if you have any complaints about that, please be sure to send them over to him. My thing is, if we're all appraised fairly, we're all paying more, we're all paying less together. And the problem that I see throughout Sachse that I'll continue to help people with and things like that are the unfair appraisals. Specifically like in Old Town, some of those appraisals just they shot up like almost double. And so we've got some residents over there. Yeah, we may have the same tax rate, but they're still for the next like 10 years or hitting that 10 percent cap every year. They're going to be hit more and more. And so somehow we've got to be able to combat the unfair appraisals that have hit some of our residents. On the flip side, you've got some residents that are appraised too little, and they're not paying their even share. So if we're all appraised fairly together, it will all come out in a wash. So that's my two cents there.

Yes. We are all property taxpayers to ourselves, so we feel that as well, I assure you.

Mayor Pro Tem Franks. So I forgot one thing. On the field lighting fee.

Yes.

Are we, how are we looking at that? Meaning, are we going to charge the baseball association more specifically? Are we going to charge the individual coaches who reserve practice times through the baseball association that don't always get to choose and they may get stuck with a late time, especially in the fall when the lights go on early?

We have not determined that yet. We are in the very early stages of identifying. As long as we look at it. Yes, absolutely. But something important to consider for sure.

And just as a comment to Mr. Lindsay, yes, according to Dallas County Appraisal District, the evaluations are down this year. They're not steady. They're not increased. They're actually down. And we can probably get some information on that as far as the homestead exemption numbers, but I think Ms. Nash has already gone through those. I know she's gone through it with me in previous years, what that number would be and how many cents of an increase it would cost to kind of break even. So, yeah, Dallas County, I don't know about Collin County, to be fair, but Dallas County has seen their evaluations actually decrease this year. The other part of your comment about the 10% cap, is rolling off this year. However, the state is already talking about putting it back on, either extending it or putting it back on. But if evaluations are down, probably not as many people are going to hit that cap. And that is all.

Okay. Mayor Pro Tem Franks, I do have that analysis, and I'll update those numbers for the council so you can see what a homestead exemption would look like now. I update it every couple years depending on who's asking for it. I'm happy to give you all an update so you can see what it looks like.

Mr. Lindsay. Yeah, I'd just like to see that publicized so that the public gets to see that sheet on there. So those numbers are good numbers to be able to advertise on there. I think it makes the case why Council hasn't acted on it. While the evaluations did come in lower, like, for example, mine, I'm still underneath the 10% cap. So I'm still going to be paying 10% more. So yes, we're going to see the evaluations. I'm going to throw those in air quotes or down. But meanwhile, the taxable values are still going to be up on there. So we are coming off of that. This is, I think, the final. That's what I was talking to Council Member Buehler about. This is probably going to be the last year that we see that increase. So we're going to start seeing things flooding out on there. Obviously, we're not building a whole lot of new residential homes, so it's going to be key to our future council to do everything possible to bring in that commercial income along 190. So go big or go home.

Okay, I know Ms. Nash has some closing comments. Any questions before that? You'll get to ask them after if you want. Okay, Ms. Nash.

All right, so I will give you all an overview generally of where we are with our budgets right now. And so first of all, you'll see here just kind of as a reminder of the budget calendar. So as we keep talking about the Budget and Burgers public engagement event is next week at Whataburger with the mayor. We will have some staff members there to be able to answer some technical questions, but mostly it's an informal opportunity to give that feedback to the mayor. You see some dates here, the EDC meeting next week That will be for them to do their final budget approval. For those of you in the public that don't know, they have their own revenue stream that is different than the general fund, so they are able to be able to finalize their budget approval much sooner than the rest of the folks that are under the general fund. Certified values, again, will be available from the appraisal districts July 24th, but then we will turn all of that around and work magic in less than a week to be able to come back to the city council for your meeting on August the 3rd for you to accept the certified appraisal tax rolls, accept the submission of the no new revenue and voter approval tax rates. Hopefully they're available. The budget presentation will be to the council. We'll schedule the public hearings and the record vote on the maximum tax rate to consider and you will discuss the budget that night. On August the 4th, we'll post that notice of public hearing and explanation of tax rates on our website. August 6th, publish the notice of public hearing. On August 17th, we will have the public hearing on the budget, more budget discussion, and set that date for adoption. And then September 8th, hold the public hearing on the tax rate if it exceeds the no new revenue rate, which right now I'm not proposing to do. Adopt the budget, ratify the tax rate in the budget, and approve the proposed tax rate. So lots going on later in the summer as we move towards finalizing the budget. What I'll talk to you about, just as a general overview here, is the base budget. This is the prior year budget, less any one-time items and capital project funding. And this is the cost of continuing existing levels of service, our revenues and expenditures. Supplemental requests, those are requests for additional budget, any program enhancements, service enhancements, or one-time items on top of the regular budget. So these are the assumptions again that I'm we are building together in the general fund a Property tax rate keeping it the exact same rate that we've had the last several years keeping it flat at a little over 65 cents Again, we feel like sales tax is still healthy and we'll build that in our franchise fees are steady our licenses and permits we recognize project delays and we will be managing those at a much lower number to make sure that we are conservative in our estimates and But again, on the expenditure side, we want to maintain our quality services with a minimum base budget growth despite inflation. Again, when those contracts go up and we don't have a choice, we build them into the budget. But we want to try to keep that as minimal as possible. So again, what you'll see here is a number. These are numbers that we're working off of based on extremely preliminary and very conservative numbers. relative to the budget. So you can see here, as I mentioned, we have healthy numbers on our sales tax and franchise fees, licenses and permits we have budgeted down, as well as fees. Interest rates are down relative to the interest that we receive. And so overall, what we're looking at on the general fund revenue side is a little bit of growth of about 1%. On the general fund expenditure side, you see some jumps a little bit across the board in each of those departments. Animal services has gone up a bit with the adding of the shelter attendant that we've added to staff this year, plus some other program costs, services costs that have increased. The city manager's office, our budget has reduced because communications has moved out of our department. The city secretary's office, we budgeted for increasing costs in advertising, legal publications, election services. We've built all of that in there. Combined services, so this is one of the levers that I'm going to be moving this year relative to how we will be able to better balance our budget. We have had a vacancy factor over the last several years of just 2%. and we're gonna be shifting that to 5%, assuming that our vacancies will be a little higher. I've always wanted to budget lower just to be very conservative, and that's a number that we've been able to keep in here, but this year I'm saying I think we could go to 5%, and that will give us some savings there. Communications, it being its own division, so it's moved, and you can see that change over from the reduction in the city manager's office, development services a reduction because as you know we have changed from internal staff for building inspections we are using Bureau Veritas and so as we build services we receive those revenues back and so that's been taken out of the department engineering has been able to make some reductions facilities maintenance unfortunately our facilities are aging and so we need to add some money back in there and some modest changes in both finance and fire rescue Not too dissimilarly, you'll see over here pretty much modest changes in each of these departments, slightly up or slightly down. The increase in human resources has to do with some changes in software licensing costs, professional services, and some changes that we made relative to reclassifications of vacant positions in HR that we upgraded to get higher quality staff. So again, you can see some modest shifts overall inflationary up and down relative to the other departments. So what you'll see here is that there is a surplus number of three hundred and three thousand dollars but again we are sort of playing with funny money a little bit right now because we are waiting to see what our final appraisals will come back in at relative to both of the the appraisal districts and the thing is we still aren't through people protesting their taxes. So I don't even look at that number as real. And so I suspect that might be gobbled up through the process. But we had to start with something. As we talked about before in terms of the utility fund, our assumptions that water rates would increase 7%, sewer rates 2%. Again, those are pass-throughs straight from where we get our water and who processes our sewer. again, from the North Texas Municipal Water District and through the city of Garland in their sewer treatment rates. In our utility fund revenue overall, we still see some strength there. As David mentioned earlier, that drainage revenue is higher because we did not anticipate or assume that you all would approve a change in that fee when we set the budget last year. And that's all I have to say about that. And then on the utility fund expenditure side, just as a reminder with where the utility fund is concerned, if we have any one-time expenditures and there's a footnote at the bottom, we take those back out when you all approve a supplemental budget item. Those aren't built back in the next year. So that's why you see the reduction. It's back down to the base budget. And again, excluding one-time supplementals, in this you can see overall a revenue growth rate of 9%, expenses 7%. So we still have a healthy balance between the two. Debt service, you can see that we assume no change in our tax rate, and those are our debt service rates. We did have a little bit of a reduction in our payments relative to this coming year. And the EDC, you can see here, we do see that revenue increase. Again, sales tax is strong and that's doing well. And then in terms of operating expenses, that's within the EDC budget that'll go to them at their regular meeting next week. But quite a bit of funds put aside for professional services and staffing and other things relative to development at Fifth Street, and those are included within that operating budget. But again, if those are not approved, those funds would just go into the fund balance for the EDC. There wouldn't be a change relative to the revenue. As you know, over the last couple of months, you all approved us to move forward with Enterprise to do a leasing program for our vehicles. And so what you'll see here, relative to the general fund VRF, Vehicle and Equipment Replacement Fund. We don't have any growth because all of that is going to be put into our new lease program. So that's why you see zero there. You will see a little bit here relative to some pieces of equipment that are not done by Enterprise. We will still have to include those in our VRF and those are reflected here as well. And then of course, we will have some auction proceeds left this year We won't, moving forward, unless it's something that's not able to be an enterprise, we'll still have those. And again, you'll see those expenditures we won't have this year because we've moved on to enterprise. And then in our utility VERF, you can see here that we have that decrease due to initial transfers into this new fund in the first year. Again, and down to supplemental requests. So again, as I talked about, these are requests for additional budgets. So program enhancements, service enhancements, and any one-time items that are above and beyond the base budget. We received nine requests in the general fund of $1 million, one request in the utility fund of $45,000, two requests in the EDC for $139,000, and VRF general and utility, 12 requests, again, items that could not be included in the enterprise contract, 12 requests of $403,000. So you can see here at this time, the only recommendation that I am making with the general fund supplementals, if we are able to do it, would be compensation. And again, that would be a 3% for non-sworn employees and a step for our sworn employees at a total of $449,455. I'm not recommending anything else move forward at this time. The utility fund, they would have their separate compensation under the utility fund of $44,592. And the EDC compensation would be separate with them adding an additional proposed position of a business retention specialist and that shows that cost and the funds remaining as a result of that. Relative to the general VRF scheduled replacements, again these are things not included in Enterprise and these are things that were already included as part of the VRF. These would be replacements and I am recommending that you do all the replacements. These are not new items, these are items that would be replaced. So you can see that there where we will still have plenty of funds remaining in the VRF. The utility fund, their request for their John Deere backhoe, again, we'll have plenty of funds remaining after the replacement of that. And with that, I will turn it over to David Baldwin to do the summary.

Before that, Ms. Buehler has a question.

Can I ask a few questions on this? Sure. The $100K discretionary contingency fund Is that the one you've had in previous years and you're not recommending to fund that this year?

No, this would be one in addition to that. In addition to that.

So we still have $100,000 for emergency contingencies.

Yes, but that I cannot use unless I have City Council approval.

Okay. Also, the runoff. It was significantly higher than what we budgeted. Is that what the 17% increase for on slide 38 is going to go for?

So that is, no, that is for next year to budget for elections in the future. And we're just putting in a number. At this point, who knows? It may not be enough. It's part of why I wanted to build in some more contingency in my funds to be able to cover that. Um, but at this point, obviously I'm taking out all those supplementals and we're just doing our best educated guess. We don't want to over budget, but you know, in talking to Leah, she didn't want to have nothing either. Absolutely.

So I'm glad we're building in some padding. Um, and the business retention specialist, is that to fill the vacancy, um, after Denise leaving or is that a third position?

It would be a third position. We're about to fill, um, the second position. That new person actually starts on June 29th. Okay. This is a request for a third position.

All right. I have one more question about the parks, but I'm sure we'll get to there. Do you want me to ask it now? Sure.

I was going to say, yeah.

Are we building in mowing the railroad? Are we going to have to absorb that cost since the railroad won't mow?

Actually, I'll let Lauren get up and answer that because this has been discussed at length.

She is our mowing liaison.

You know, not really a title I wanted.

I didn't see it in the line-by-line budget, so I just want to make sure we're contemplating that.

So as Mayor and Council know, the railroad transitioned from Kansas City Southern to CPKC, and we've been in conversations with the leadership of the mowing and maintenance division. They have informed us, along with several other cities in North Texas who are also going through this battle, that They're not going to maintain the right of way in the same manner as it was previously maintained. We've gone back and forth with them. There are several emails back and forth between the railroad and I. It is just not something that they are going to do. They have not so generously offered to let us pay for it. Ms. Nash and I have been discussing a proposal for that with the idea that we would ask your permission to use some of those remaining contingency funds to cover the rest of this year, and then figure out what we'll do for the next year, knowing that they've just neglected to maintain it. Their version of maintenance and our expectations don't align, and so we're gonna have to do something. Okay.

All right, thank you.

You're welcome.

Mayor Peralta and Franks. A couple things I would like to have seen in this presentation. One is you have a slide, general fund expenditures, or slide 38 and 39. And it lists the increase by department. But you don't list what percentage of the budget goes to each department. And I would like to see that. Because what typically comes up is patrons, residents, taxpayers come up to us and say, we need to lower the tax rate. OK. To do that, we have to cut things. So what do you want to cut? Chiefs, earmuffs, 55% to 60% goes to public safety of our budget. And hopefully nobody needs public safety, but if you do, you want them to have all of their toys and all of their people. So if you want significant change or decrease in taxes, that's the only department that's gonna make a significant change in the budget. So any other department is gonna be minuscule and you would have to cut things out of every department to make a real difference. So I would like to see that slide. The other thing is, Gina, you mentioned the property taxing and appeals, right? The issue with appeals is we had over 250,000 appeals in Dallas County alone this year. You probably have seen billboards and heard radio advertisements of certain companies doing that for you. My work on DCAD board has shown that one company specifically is not settling any of them. They're taking them all to a hearing, every single one of them, whether it's a $1 change or a $1 million change. Every one of them is going to a hearing. They're not settling any of them. How that affects us here is that after that hearing occurs, they will call. I don't know whose office, probably budgeting office, and say, you owe us money back. We've given you money in taxes. We've had a hearing, and now they've lowered it, so you need to give us some of that money back. So how are we planning for that, or are we planning for that? I don't know what that number is every year, but it's increasing. We're expecting over 300,000 protests next year because it's growing exponentially. Any thoughts?

The only thoughts I have is that what we've talked about is we have budgeted as conservatively as we possibly can. And that's why you're seeing a very stripped down version of a budget that we haven't done in the 11 years I've been here. This is basic stuff. This is what we're providing for you.

No, and if that's the plan, that's fine. I just didn't know if there was anything else being discussed. Because we never know what that number is going to be. Whether we owe them a dollar or a million dollars, we don't know until the protests and hearings are completed. I have asked about, we've always talked about, hey, we get our numbers. It seems to be at the last second, right? Well, DCAD specifically has until X date per the state to provide those numbers to the city. But we're always, excuse me, in previous years, we were always rushing to get the budget finalized because they got those in at the last date. So I've asked them, is there a way to get these numbers back to entities any sooner? And they're like, well, you know, the The state says we have until then, and all the hearings and stuff, it's going to take until then. So there's not going to be any relief in getting any information any quicker. So that's all that.

So Mayor Pro Tem, let me give you just a snapshot of our maintenance and operations rate. So when you look at the total rate, it's right at about $0.65. As we pointed out, $0.19 of that is debt service. So what you have left is roughly $0.456. Of the 45.6 cents, 44.6 is police and fire. So there is less than a penny that actually goes to all remaining city services in the general fund.

Let me fix that. Thank you, Mayor. That's important to know because everyone says we need lower taxes. Okay. To lower taxes, we have to cut something because everything, as Councilman Lindsey said, everything's more expensive, whether it be The grocery store, whether it be your taxes, whether it be electricity, whatever it is, everything's more. Although concrete has seemed to level off finally, but it still wasn't increased. So I think it's important that we know that because if you want to cut or reduce taxes, it's going to take a significant cut in the budget. So from council members or from residents that want to come up and say, you need to lower taxes. Okay, what do you want to cut? Give me suggestions. I mean, we all... This is the worst part of this whole year for me. I hate this part. Don't take that personally, David. It's not that, but I mean, look at this book. And this isn't even the final book. We're going to go through this about five more times. And we're digging into each department. And thank God it wasn't during the recession of 08 to 012, because they were looking at a box of pencils and a ream of paper. That's how they were in. But it's still, you have to dig into each department line item to find measurable change. And the only department you can find measurable change is public safety. So I'm not recommending it, just to be clear, but I challenge anyone who comes up with the fact that we need to lower taxes or reduce to find that item or program or whatever it may be, vehicle to reduce. Mr. Prestenberg.

Yes, would you say miserable change or measurable change? Both. Okay. Yeah, Mrs. Nash, the general fund revenue, slide 37, I know you just mentioned to Mayor Pro Tem that y'all try to take everything very conservative nature and property taxes. The sales tax increase, I mean, 8% seems like a lot, but with... A new member coming toward our premises in the next year, right? Or early in the fiscal year 2026, 2027. plus some new restaurants that have come through recently. Do we consider that really conservative? I don't know. Not that an extra 50 or 100K is going to make a huge hill of beans, but I don't necessarily want to be super conservative. I would like to be a little bit more focused on what it could be and maybe take a percentage of that. I don't know. I know we're going to go through this, like you said, four or five more times, but

Wouldn't mind looking... We do build some of that into that, but we want to be careful when something is ramping up and it's new. It's not going to get that maximum amount of sales tax that first year. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time for them to be able to ramp up. And so, again, we just want to make sure that we're not building a budget that we can't substantiate on the back end. Understood. And it could be that, again, some of these numbers come in stronger, but we're trying to take a conservative approach approach as possible without cutting services.

Understood. There's a lot of pent-up demand for certain things that are coming too. And then just ask from a request from your departments or whatnot. Are people sitting on their hands like we really need certain things but we just know we can't we shouldn't ask for it right now?

I think that department heads asked I think two things. I think one There's not one person on that team that doesn't understand the mission of what we're trying to do and that the city comes first and it isn't just about their department. So I think they take a very critical eye to that before they submit something. But second, I've always told them, do not hold back. If you need something, you must put it on the list because the elected officials need to know what it is that you need. And we can't just pull that back from them because then they don't have the information to be able to make good decisions. No, I think everybody, you know, they understand a constrained world, but if they needed something, they asked for it.

Okay.

I just want to make sure that I don't want to... And you all have been very generous over the last 11 years in making sure that everybody got what they needed and, again, going back to kind of the idea of what your strategic priorities are, always with excellent services in mind. And so they have been able to do that consistently.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Mr. Lindsay.

yeah on this slide here so sales tax do we have control over what that number is going to be over the purchases of our residents therefore the revenue collected yeah no not necessarily okay franchise tax we do not license and permits we don't know what i mean we can set the rate on on there same thing with fees maybe but uh just the point that i'm making is on property taxes that number there is based on the rate that we said so that rate That change on there is completely at the discretion of the city council. So if it has to be, you know, once all these assessments finalize, we need a certain amount of money to operate. You know, this is the unpopular thing, though, but, you know, the tax rate could theoretically go up a cent. We'd still be well within our cap. And that growth right there would be a different number. So, I mean, we've got direct control of that top line and what gets done. So I know we're going to come in as a lean budget as possible, but I don't want to see any sacrifices. Speaking as a citizen, because I won't be around, but I don't want to see any cuts to our chiefs back there or anything else. We need to do what we have to do in order to preserve the core services that we're already providing. We're already not going above and beyond. We're not being extravagant in any areas. So, but I just want to point out, we've got control of that top line. Is that correct? That's based on the tax rate and that's based on a very conservative number at this point. I believe it's more around four, but I'm not the award winning and I'm a layman in this area. But I think that's going to come up a little higher and I think we'll be okay.

Okay, Mr. Baldwin, I think you had some closing remarks.

Gotta go all the way back. There's gotta be a faster way to advance 20 slides. I don't think so. All right, mayor counsel so we've we've spoken about the base budget and then we've spoken about supplemental requests and those that is Nash's is recommending and so this slide kind of combines all that's to that together so it includes the recommended supplemental requests looking at the general fund if we take that surplus that we had around $377,000. If we fund that one compensation supplemental, then it shows right now that there's a deficit of $77,000. As we've all said, those numbers, they're still moving. And so we'll see how that shakes out as we move forward. In the utility fund, if we fund the recommended supplementals, then we have $3.7 million. That currently excludes capital projects, and that will be included within the proposed budget brought to you in late July as the book and presented August 3rd at your council meeting. The debt service fund shows savings of $2.7 million. However, that excludes the anticipated certificates of obligation. Moving on to Economic Development Corporation, it shows for the year a drawdown of fund balance of $1.6 million. If everything that is anticipated actually goes through and becomes a drawdown of the fund balance, then we're still looking at an EDC or Economic Development Corporation fund balance of around $4.4 or $4.9 million, so still a healthy fund. Looking at the two VRF funds, it shows the balance there. That excess reflects contributions to VRF reserves for future replacements, or as we move towards enterprise, towards another solution, funds would be going towards lease payments. So that's kind of that. Overall look of how we are and then I'll end it with our next steps. This isn't the only time to discuss the budget We have budget and burgers as discussed on June 25th The city managers proposed budget is anticipated to be available to council on our website on July 28th. That's a Thursday Then follow arm. Sorry. It should be on a Tuesday and then August 3rd at the council meeting

that's not the only council meeting we have council meetings following on august 17th and september 8th miss nash um david can you go back all the way to the beginning of the presentation when you talk about i'm not actually not joking at all um the very beginning um because i don't want anybody to leave here or who's watching here tonight uh to be confused that second slide david There is the ability right now to go and look at this draft budget. So the draft that you see today that the council has been looking at, you have the opportunity to go and look at that online right now. Now, some of this will change as we continue to work through some of these revenues and all of these things as we continue to develop the budget. But I strongly encourage the public, there is this opportunity with the mayor next week. We have an entire month before August. All of this information is out there and available to the public right now to be able to view and ask any questions about. And they get to come have a Whataburger with the man.

Sure, yeah. I'm not paying for your Whataburger. David, what's that email address again? I am not paying for that. Ms. Granger, make sure that's clear in a minute. What's that email for the budget again?

The email to reach the finance department is budget at cityofsaxe.com. I believe to reach council, it's council at city of... Council members? Okay, never mind. I'll stick with what I know. Budget at cityofsaxe.com. Remember also you can go to your web browser and type in www.cityofsaxe.com forward slash budget and there you'll have opportunities for engagement and be able to download this preliminary budget document.

I sense some social media posts coming in the near future probably as well.

Not by me, not my skill set, but we have an award-winning communications position.

I was not thinking of you. I WOULD SAY I WANT TO TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO COMMEND STAFF FOR A VERY THOROUGH PRESENTATION. IT'S VERY CHALLENGING BECAUSE WE DID DECIDE TO MOVE UP THE CALENDAR TO WHERE WE DON'T HAVE QUITE AS MUCH SOLID INFORMATION. AS MAYOR POTENTIAL FRANKS POINTED OUT, WE'LL NEVER GET THAT SOLID INFORMATION UNTIL THE VERY LAST MINUTE BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, VARIOUS REASONS. I JUST WANT TO GO BACK TO A PHILOSOPHY THAT I'VE ALWAYS SHARED SINCE I'VE BEEN IN PUBLIC SERVICE IS THAT WHAT KIND OF CITY DO YOU WANT TO LIVE IN? AND THAT COULD BE ANSWERED MANY DIFFERENT WAYS. I KNOW WHAT KIND OF CITY I WANT TO LIVE IN, AND IT'S WHAT STAFF HAS PRESENTED PRELIMINARILY TONIGHT. MR. LINDSEY SAID THAT, YES, WE CAN CONTROL ONE THING ON THAT TOP LINE, ADAM, AND STAFF HAS DONE A REALLY GOOD JOB WITH THAT. THINGS ARE GOING TO CHANGE A LITTLE BIT, BUT AS MAYOR PROTENT FRANKS POINTED OUT, THE VAST MAJORITY OF OUR BUDGETS ARE PUBLIC SAFETY. Rightfully so we have it literally have an award-winning fire department. We have a nationally recognized police department and Those two things did not happen by accident and they also didn't happen because it was all free You know those things cost money, and if we did not have the level of public safety that we have in this city today None of this other stuff would really matter Because nobody wouldn't want to live here, and so I think it's a very as Mayor Pro Tem Frank said Nobody likes to take this big old budget thing and look at it, but that's part of our job that we do and with staffs help We have done a really good job in getting to this point. We got a lot of work to do still But at the end of the day as Mr.. Lindsay said is that I don't want any of our services cut Just because we can say we quote unquote lowered your tax rate That's not what this is about. So I look forward to the ongoing Presentations and discussions going forward. Like I said, the next one will be June 25th at Whataburger. Please come out and join me I'm not paying for your burger. I promise but you can come out have a good time and there's like there's no presentation There's no formal thing. You just come and ask ask whatever you want and we'll be there for you So with that I see miss Buehler has a question or comment or you don't okay Anything else? All right. Thank you, staff. Thank you very much for your hard work. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next item on the agenda is Item G, excuse me, Item H, Executive Session. Item 1, the City Council shall convene into Executive Session pursuant to Texas Government Code Section 551.074, Personnel Matters, regarding the mid-year review of the City Secretary. The time is, Granger? 8.16 p.m. We are adjourned into Executive Session at 8.16 p.m. Okay, we are reconvened into open session. The time is greater. 9.10 p.m. We're back in open session at 9.10 p.m. Next item on the agenda is item I, action resulting from executive session. Item 1, taking action as a result of executive session regarding the mid-year review of the city secretary. No action necessary. Next item is adjournment. The time is greater. 9.10 p.m. We adjourn at 9.10 p.m.