“We will bring this subject up not tonight but soon,” said City Manager Tom Ginter. He said information included in this year’s budget books for the council and city department heads would show the cost of living history for city employees going back to 1997-98.
Ginter recounted a little of the city’s property tax history, pointing out that the current tax rate is lower than it was four years ago. That has been made possible by increases in the assessed value of property within the city.
The city manager said council members may set property tax rates at anywhere from $0.58105 to $0.6004 per $100 of assessed value.
A schedule included in the city’s budget provided figures showing what expected collections would be with a variety of tax rates.
According to Ginter and Finance Director Deborah Ballí, work on the budget for the next fiscal year has been an exercise in cutting expenditures.
Ginter said city department heads have made recommendations concerning fees paid for services, fines, permits and licenses that could bring additional revenues to City Hall.
In most cases, department heads had recommended fee increases to better match similar fees charged in neighboring cities.
“There is some methodology to the recommendations,” Ballí said. She told the council that each department head had input on what he or she thought the fees should be.
“These look relatively low,” Mayor Santiago “Jimbo” Martinez Jr. said of some of the fees listed in the budget information.
City Councilman John Fulghum said he was impressed by the way the budget book had been prepared this year.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Fulghum said.
Ginter said he wanted to use some of the city’s hotel and motel tax money to advertise the city’s community center. He said the tax collections from local motels have been increasing lately because occupancy has been up in the past year.
“We want to (advertise) because we want people to stay overnight and attend functions,” Ginter said of the community center.
The manager said he also would be interested in tapping into some of the Beeville Economic Improvement Corporation’s 4B sales tax funds to pay for time and materials invested in that organization’s meetings.
Ginter encouraged the council to consider placing more emphasis on the Main Street Program here to bring more events downtown.
Part of that effort would also go toward advertising the community center.
Several department heads commented during the workshop, telling council members what they would like to see funded. Also, most acknowledged that some of their requests had been cut from the budget to reduce anticipated spending.
Council members scheduled their next budget workshop for Wednesday, Aug. 11, at 6 p.m.
Gary Kent is a reporter at the Bee-Picayune and can be reached at 358-2550, ext. 120, or at reporter@mySouTex.com.
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