2012-2013 PROPOSED BUDGET - Laserfiche WebLink

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0.5% as a good faith statement to our citizens. The total current tax rate is $0.52 per $100 of assessed valuation. I am actually recommending a total ad valorem tax rate of $.51107, a reduction of 1.717%, three times the amount targeted. Such reductions are not something we can do every year, however. Some of what was required to reach that figure are one-time fixes, for example. But we do take the tax rate extremely seriously and hope to prove ourselves good stewards of public funds. GENERAL FUND Revenues: Please keep in mind that cities in Texas actually adopt and maintain two different tax rates. The maintenance and operations (M&O) tax rate is that portion of the total tax rate that supports the operations of the city. All of this revenue goes into the General Fund. We are proposing an M&O rate of $0.41487. This is a slight increase in the M&O rate from 2011-12, but is necessary to fund our $103,695 payment to SuRRMA for their debt obligations related to the expansion of SH 24. This figure equates to $0.0073 cents from the M&O rate not available for operating costs, making our true M&O rate $.040757, or a decrease of 0.593%. Another major recommended General Fund revenue change is Water Sewer Utility (gross receipts) and Water & Sewer Transfer (indirect costs). Like most cities with multiple funds, Paris classifies certain funds as enterprise funds, one of which is the Utilities Fund. Enterprise Funds are intended to operate like a business, paying their own ways through their own revenue sources, typically user fees. In order to treat our Utility Fund as an enterprise, it must assume certain business expenses, such as overhead, administration, HR, risk management, auditing, management, etc., plus the payment of gross receipt taxes. Leaving these kinds of costs out understates the true cost of providing water and sewer services, and that in turn would mean property and sales taxes are subsidizing water and sewer. In the proposed new budget I have increased the gross receipts payment to 5%, thereby making that payment equivalent to fees paid by other utility providers that operate within the city's rights-of-way. This should generate an additional approximately $260,000 over the existing 3% rate. I am also recommending increasing the indirect costs charged to the Utilities Fund by the General Fund by $125,000. Expenditures: • The administration budget is up by 51.27% due to the funding of the city manager's position for a full year following an extended vacancy, and also because the huinan resources manager's costs have been transferred from accounting to administration. This in turn is a result of a reorganization that will administratively move HR to directly under the city manager effective October 1. • Accounting/auditing is down by almost $91,000, or 17%, due to the transfer out of HR functions, and because of expenditures for one-time building improvements in 2011-12.