08-08-2023 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

permit issuance, permit tracking, inspections, council and board actions, etc. The demand on frontline staff has increased tremendously in the City Hall Annex Building. Andrew Mack, Director of Planning and Community Development, would like to add a front desk position who will relieve existing staff, who have technical responsibilities in permitting, zoning, tracking, planning, housing, main street, etc., of these critical yet time consuming front desk duties. This position will be stationed inside the front room of the City Hall Annex and will handle the technical questions related to the Community Development and Fire Marshal's office that the City Clerk Secretary cannot. We want to be responsive to not only those who come through the front door, but also those who are communicating with us on the backend as well as expecting responses to inquiries sent in to our technical staff. This position will help provide some relief for our Permit Tech and Deputy City Clerk who both primarily cover the front desk, but also provide direct assistance to Mr. Mack and Cheri Bedford, Main Street Coordinator and Historic Commission Officer, while also benefiting the entire department via an upward ripple effect of relief and assistance. We also foresee this position potentially relieving the Fire Department Secretary of various Code Enforcement Department secretarial duties that have continued on since when this department was subsidiary to the Fire Department a few years ago. The budget impact for this position is minimal, but the operational impact to the overall department and its divisions will be tremendous. 9. Maintaining Operational Services — Despite the significant challenges and priorities mentioned above, the Proposed FY23/24 Budget is also designed to maintain operational services for our citizens. Throughout the entire budget, it is clear to me that the City Staff continue to do a great job of being frugal, consistent, and conscientious of the tax payer dollar. Departments are steadily providing the services under the same budgets year after year, only with minimal increases to account for increases in prices. We continue to set individual line item budgets such that it matches the true cost to provide the service as seen over the prior few years. Any adjustments up or down are for known reasons (a new piece of equipment, dropping the need for a particular subscription, better pricing through new bids, increases in service costs, etc.). While there is much more we would like to do for our citizens, we respect that resources are limited and will continue to use them as wisely as we can to impact the most individuals possible. 10. Texas Property Tax Reform and Transparency Act of 2019 — This Act was passed by the Texas Legislature in 2019. This represents a fairly comprehensive amendment to how Municipalities in Texas prepare their budgets. This Act first took effect in FY20/21. A large amount of the Act changes how the Texas Comptroller operates, but there is a fair amount of edits to how the City of Paris must handle the procedure of passing a budget (notices, deadlines, public hearings, content of material produced, etc.), but the primary and long lasting impact that the City of Paris will feel for years to come is the restriction in Property Tax Growth. The Texas Municipal League (TML) has produced an Explanatory Q&A, found on their website. The reader can also read S132 directly, but I would strongly recommend starting with the TML Q&A first to give you an idea of what it is you are reading in the Act. The Act is rather complicated. The TML Q&A does a very good job of capturing the essence of SB2. "At its most fundamental level, S.B. 2 reforms the system of property taxation in three primary ways: (1) lowering the tax rate a taxing unit can adopt without voter approval and requiring a mandatory election to go above the lowered rate; (2) making numerous changes to the procedure by which a city, adopts a tax rate; and (3) making several changes to the property tax appraisal process. " The Act produces the following formula when calculating our new Property Tax Rate: "Voter -Approval Rate = (No -New -Revenue Maintenance and Operations Rate x 1.035) + Current Debt Service Tax Rate" In short, the City of Paris can only grow its Maintenance and Operational Tax Rate by 3.5% each year without, possibly, triggering a mandatory election (hence the "Voter Approval" terminology). Cities with Page 15 of 23