The proposed Fiscal Year 2020-2021 City of Brownwood Budget has been submitted to City Council with a request to lower the tax rate and not raise fees.

The $36,088,926 budget is a .53% decrease from last year, about $200,000 less.

In session Tuesday morning, August 11, the Brownwood City Council took a record vote, 5-0, in favor of a No-New-Revenue tax rate of $.7448 per $100 valuation.  Senate Bill 2 requires a very specific timeline of activities to adopt a tax rate.  Once the calculations are completed for a No-New-Revenue (NNR) tax rate and a Voter-Approval tax rate and posted to the city website (which has been done), the Council must vote on a proposal to adopt a tax rate. This is not a formal adoption of the tax rate and the actual rate adopted may change after the vote, but if it does, a new series of publications and public hearings may be necessary, according to the city.

“The Council met with us earlier in the Spring.  They really wanted us to be able to reduce the tax rate if possible and, also, have no increase in any kind of user fees,” said City Manager Emily Crawford.  “We did not know what to expect out of this pandemic and how it was going to impact the citizens and our businesses and so we took that to heart.  Our staff was able to come up with a budget that actually did have a significant tax decrease.  That is an attribute to the City of Brownwood and the new valuations that we have on the tax rolls,” Crawford said.

According to information from the City, the No-New-Revenue tax rate of $.7448 is a reduction of 4.21 cents or 5.4% and is the lowest tax rate since 1996.

The city is not proposing an increase in the water consumption rate.

“In the proposed budget the City will be able to absorb the water rate fee increase of 3.4% from the Brown County Water Improvement District and not pass the increase on to city customers,” Crawford said.  The increase added $46,650 in cost to the City.  Even with no rate increase, water revenue is expected to be higher in the coming budget due to increased consumption.

In other highlights from the proposed City Budget:

• There are no changes to the water base rate, sewer rate, sanitation rate or landfill gate rate.
• No pay raises are budgeted, but there is a $215,000 one-time bonus budgeted to be distributed to all City employees.
• The Street Rehab Budget was increased from $240,000 to $300,000.

A copy of the proposed City Budget has been posted to the City website and placed on file with the City Secretary and the Brownwood Public Library, where the public may review it during normal hours of operation.