We had a comparatively cooler summer this year, and now we are gearing up for our fall and winter events season while finalizing the upcoming fiscal year’s budget.
The proposed budget – which will be voted on this month and go into effect on Oct. 1 – currently totals $452 million. It was a difficult budget, to put it bluntly. For the first time in the past 15 years, the Town’s property tax base decreased by two percent compared to the prior year’s certified tax roll. When accounting for new growth, the loss is closer to five percent. This decline is primarily due to a lack of new development and home sales. With some of the highest interest rates seen in the past decade and economic uncertainty, fewer people have sold their homes, and believe it or not, there has also been a decrease in new builds. Additionally, sales tax receipts have remained flat as the economy continues to recover from the rampant inflation of the past five years.
The Town of Flower Mound is not alone in this. Almost every community in Texas is feeling the dramatic hit to their revenues. State legislature is also enacting restrictions on our ability to capture more revenue, making it more difficult for local municipalities to budget services to our community. Town staff, Council and I have worked to oppose these restrictions at the Austin legislative sessions this year, with some success with land use bills that could have impacted us in the years ahead. Despite state legislative restrictions, our priority is to continue delivering the same exceptional level of service our residents are used to, while tightening our belt where we can. Only a handful of decision packages – which are proposals that will result in a change in the current level of service, the addition of a new program, or a capital item – were approved this year. Usually, when I write my column around this time of year, I’m outlining new operational changes, personnel updates, and service level adjustments, but that’s not the case this time because our proposed budget does not have many approved decision packages due to our budgetary restrictions.
Rather, this year, I’d like to tell you about what we are prioritizing. And the first thing on that list is our staff. At the end of the day, as a Town, our people are the most important. We want to have the best. The proposed budget includes our typical merit and market adjustments to remain competitive in the DFW marketplace and to reward the performance of our outstanding staff members. Another priority this year is capital investment. Residents passed our 2025 Bond Program back in May, funding $112 million in capital investments to our streets, trails, and parks. This bond program was made possible by shifting our financial strategy to utilize debt for capital projects, thereby freeing up operating dollars for increased maintenance. We are also currently in the design phase for Fire Stations 6 and 9 to continue to deliver excellent safety to our community. We are also looking at land acquisition for a new police facility, as our current facility is over 30 years old and lacks a practical means of expansion. Additionally, you will see the return of motorcycle police officers, as we approved two motorcycles for the police department.
So, all of that to say, big things are still ahead. This proposed budget also continues to provide property tax relief by decreasing the tax rate and raising the homestead exemption to 20 percent, which is the maximum allowed by state law.
I encourage you to read through the budget online. This is our second year hosting the budget on ClearGov’s digital platform, which allows us to present the budget in a device-friendly, transparent, and easy-to-use format. Once you get a chance to look it over at flowermound.gov/proposedbudget, join us on Monday, Sept. 15 at 6 p.m. for our regular Town Council meeting at Town Hall (2121 Cross Timbers Rd.), during which time we’ll hold a public hearing on the budget.
I look forward to seeing you there and hearing your thoughts. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you back on these pages next month (when it’s hopefully started to really cool off!).
