City discusses 2023-24 budget, includes tax rate decrease
- Charity Fitch
- Aug 29, 2023
- 3 min read
On June 29, Waxahachie city staff presented the proposed 2023-24 fiscal year city budget and tax rate to the Waxahachie City Council during a work session. The proposed budget includes market salary adjustments for city employees, several projects, additional personnel, equipment improvements and more.
The property tax rate would see a two-cent decrease from $0.63 to $0.61 per $100 valuation.
The city is looking at a $125 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. Of that budget, $57.6 million is allocated for the general fund, which supports the city’s day-to-day operations, including parks and recreation, city administration, streets, sidewalks, fire and police departments, economic development, the library, and the senior center.
“The priority this year was really focusing on our people – hiring and retaining the best staff,” city manager Michael Scott said.
About $4.5 million of the city’s budget, with $3.3 million allocated in the general fund budget, will fund market salary adjustments for all employees. Last year, a compensation study was conducted to help with the retention of current city employees and the recruitment of new ones. The study compared positions in Waxahachie to 31 cities in the area.
“It’s not across the board by any means,” Scott said. “It (the study) has looked at each position. They did a compared analysis on how that position compares to these comparable cities, and then that was the basis … there will be some that are much larger increases than others.”
“We’re looking at not just the average out there, so we’re wanting to make sure that we’re competitive,” deputy city manager Albert Lawrence said. “It’s built in that we’re a little bit above the average, so that we are more competitive as trying to recruit and retain employees versus some of these other cities.”
Projects identified in the budget include police parking lot expansion, fiber network expansion, Getzendaner restroom renovation and street improvements.
The budget allocates about $115,000 to transition handguns from .40 caliber to 9mm for the Waxahachie Police Department.
“The weapons systems for modern law enforcement have changed exponentially,” Chief of Police Joe Wiser said. “The cost of this would include an estimation on selling the current weapons back, and that cost also includes the capability to have holsters for those weapons, a red dot sight, which makes a tremendous difference in the overall accuracy for our officers, and holsters and flashlights for those weapons. … A lot of the research on that says the nine-millimeter is favorable, and I can tell you the ammunition is much cheaper.”
Other equipment improvements include six new police vehicles, radios for emergency operations center, tractor, mowers, trailers, A/V system for the senior center, and utility vehicles for the parks and streets departments.
The budget also identifies new positions, which includes a records coordinator for the police department, six firefighters, a senior director of public works, a buyer position in the finance department, and positions in the water, wastewater and beautification departments.
The Waxahachie Community Development Corporation’s roughly $7 million budget includes replacing the carpet at the civic center, adding automatic doors that are handicap-accessible to the civic center, continuing synthetic turf and wrought iron fence projects at the sports complex, adding shaded structures by the soccer fields, and various landscape improvements.
Since this was a work session for the council, no action was taken. An updated budget will be presented to the city council for review Aug. 1, and the council will vote Aug. 7 to set a public hearing date to discuss the budget and tax rate. No dates for public hearings have been set at this time.
On Sept. 5, the council will vote to adopt the budget and tax rate for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
For more information about meetings or the budget, visit the city’s website at https://www.waxahachie.com/.
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