Georgetown city staff presented a draft of the budget and Capital Improvement Plan to City Council during a July 9 workshop, which projects expenditures to surpass forecasted revenues in fiscal year 2024-25.

Overview

According to Georgetown’s FY 2025 Budget and Capital Improvement Plan, the city is projecting revenues of $108.39 million, which is a 9.8% increase over the prior year, while expenditures are projected to increase by 3.3%, or $3.49 million, to $109.63 million. Though expenditures are projected to surpass the forecasted revenues, year-end revenue estimates for fiscal year 2023-24 saw a 3.5% increase to $29.5 million, and FY 2024-25 is estimated to grow by a further 2% to $30.1 million.

City officials are developing the budget in the context of stress points identified in Georgetown, which continues to be the fastest growing city in the country with a population over 50,000, Georgetown City Manager David Morgan said during the presentation.

According to city documents, identified pressure points within the budget include cost escalation of capital projects, moderate continued growth, water service expansions, maintaining core services, customer service, street light maintenance and the 311-like system implementation.


The city has seen the following increases in demand for city services:
  • 24% increase in Georgetown Police Department service calls since 2017
  • 60% increase in Georgetown Fire Department service calls since 2017
  • 30% growth in population serviced by water utilities since 2020
  • 8% growth in water meters since 2023
  • 2% more miles of water lines since 2023
  • 21% increase in public fire hydrants since 2023
  • 20% growth in valves since 2023
The FY 2024-25 budget proposal will be submitted to the city council on August 13.

Also of note

As part of the Capital Improvement Plan and in an effort to ease pressure on city services, the proposed budget suggests hiring a total of 39 positions in a wide range of fields. They include two part-time library security specialists, a senior library assistant, three CIT police officers and three Joint Services Fund staff. Other proposed staffing additions include:

Electric utilities
  • 2 customer energy solutions specialists
  • 1 electric administrator
  • 1 systems ops specialist
  • 3 training and development services
  • 1 electrical engineering
Water utilities
  • 6 water administrators
  • 4 water plant management
  • 3 water operations
  • 5 metering services
  • 3 operational technology
  • 1 stormwater staff
Information Technology
  • 1 data analyst
  • 1 GIS Analyst 11