Departmental budget presentations resume.
City Council set the preliminary tax rate for Fiscal Year 2020 at 74.98 cents, the current rate, at a special meeting tonight. The preliminary rate may not be exceeded when adopted with the budget.
Council deliberated three alternatives in setting the tax rate. The current rate of 74.98 cents is the same rate the City has maintained since Fiscal Year 2015. The effective rate of 67.88 cents is the rate that would be required to generate the same amount of tax revenue in Fiscal Year 2020 as in 2018. The rollback rate, at 75.88 cents, is the rate that if exceeded gives citizens the right to petition for an election to reduce it.
Because there is a proposed tax revenue increase, the State of Texas requires that the City hold two public hearings. City Council set these hearings on September 3 and 10.
City staff continued departmental presentations of the proposed budget at tonight’s workshop. Public Safety presentations were given for the Building and Inspections Division, Code Enforcement and the Police Department. The Fire Department and Municipal Court were presented at last week’s workshop.
Community and Economic Development presentations included the budgets for Aviation, Community Development including the Arts and Activities Center and Civic and Conference Center and the Planning and Development Department.
The next budget workshop is scheduled August 27 and will finish departmental presentations with the Support Services category, which includes the City Auditor, City Manager, Building and Custodial Services, Communications, Finance, Human Resources, Information Technology and Legal. Community partner presentations are also scheduled from Bell County Health District, the HOP, Bell County Communications Center, Killeen Economic Development Corporation and Chamber of Commerce and the Mounted Warfare Museum.
As delivered August 6, the proposed Fiscal Year 2020 Annual Budget is balanced with $209 million in projected expenditures and an overall ending fund balance projected at 21.6 percent. There remain no proposed increases in the tax rate or utility fees.
City Council will continue deliberating the proposal through budget adoption scheduled September 17. Fiscal Year 2020 begins October 1, 2019 and ends September 30, 2020.
The entire proposed budget is available at KilleenTexas.gov/Budget along with links to all documents, presentations, notices and videos. In addition to viewing materials, the public is encouraged to engage in the process by attending budget workshops and participating in the budget and tax rate public hearing September 3 and a second tax rate public hearing September 10.