No change in property tax rate seen but utility bills will be higher

Although preliminary projections see residential property owners experiencing a 10 percent increase in their annual tax bill because of increased valuations, City Manager Scott Sellers said today he will seek neither a property tax increase nor a reduction in his upcoming budget proposal, but residents should expect to see a significant increase in wastewater fees.

And, he added, they can expect to see their water rates go up by as much as $23 a month by 2022.

Sellers unveiled the city’s budget needs during a city council workshop this morning and the dire picture pointed to close to $10 million in needed additional General Fund expenses for the next fiscal year with only a $2.5 million in additional revenue being forecast — a budget gap of $7.5 million that Sellers must find a way to close to zero by July 23, the date he will submit his proposed budget to the council for its consideration.

What Sellers called the most "disturbing" part of the budget was the realization that the cost of the wastewater treatment plant expansion is going to be a whopping 53 percent more than anticipated — $26 million instead of the original estimate of $17 million. This will be financed by a $20 million bond issuance which will be repaid by raising the average amount Kyle customers pay for wastewater by $7.08 a month. That means the average customer’s wastewater bill in Kyle will be in the neighborhood of $42 a month beginning in October. Sellers said construction on the expansion is scheduled to begin in August or September and is expected to be completed no later than December of 2020.

Finance Director Perwez Moheet also gave council members a preview of how the contract with the Alliance Regional Water Authority that’s designed to provide for all the city’s water needs for at least the next quarter century will impact residential water bills. He said the debt ARWA will issue in two phases will translate into a an average water bill increase of $9.25 per month in 2020 and another $12.60 per month hike in 2022.

When it came time for council members to list their priorities for the FY 2018-19 budget, Mayor Pro Tem Shane Arabie said he wants to see the city devote more emphasis to "quality of life" issues and results of the city’s most recent survey would seem to support that notion as only 34 percent of respondents said the city had an adequate number/variety of recreational and entertainment options. Mayor Travis Mitchell said his major concern is increased spending on marketing that supports the city’s economic development efforts. None of the other council members said they had formed an opinion on priorities at this time.

Other news that came out of this morning’s budget workshop included:

• What was once conceived of as a sports pavilion at the new Kyle Vista Park is going to become a semi-enclosed roller skating facility to be located at Gregg-Clarke Park.
• Groundbreaking on the dog park will take place at 10 a.m. April 6.
• The preliminary budget calls for spending $670,800 more in the next fiscal year on streets.
• The city’s population this year is 43,417 and is expected to reach 50,000 in two years.
• According to the results of the latest city survey, 49 percent of those who recently moved to Kyle said they did so because of the cost of housing while only 2 percent said they did so because of the local schools.

I have asked city officials if they plan to post a copy of Sellers’ budget presentation on the city’s web site. If that happens, I will post a link to that here. (It was finally posted Tuesday evening.)