The gist
Hutto City Manager James Earp presented City Council on Aug. 3 with a proposed budget for FY 2023-24, developed from workshops, a community survey and Hutto’s 2023 strategic plan. Based on a no-new-revenue tax rate—meaning the city would collect the same amount of property tax revenue as it did last year—the budget includes funding for additional staffing and $263 million in capital improvement projects.
Quote of note
“That is an astoundingly large number that says that this city is serious about investing in infrastructure,” Earp said.
The breakdown
The proposed budget includes $263.6 million in capital improvement projects. Of that, $23.3 million in cash would come from the general fund, park development fund, community benefit fees, coronavirus recovery dollars and transportation impact fees. The remainder would come from the city’s spending plan, and it’s likely the city would need to issue some of the remaining bond funding stemming from 2018.
By the numbers:
Of the proposed $263.6 million in CIP projects, the budget would allocate:
- $166 million for wastewater improvements
- $51.3 million in water projects
- $40.4 million in transportation projects
- $3.8 million in parks improvements
- $1.02 million in building and facility projects
City staff is proposing a property tax rate of $0.402114 per $100 valuation. For comparison, last year’s rate was $0.42198. If council were to adopt this rate, the average homeowner would see a reduction of $41 a year on their tax bill. However, property owners with homestead exemptions would see a slight increase in their annual bills. Broken down, changes to tax bills would look like:
- Property owners with homestead exemptions: increase of $74 a year on average
- Property owners without a homestead exemption: decrease of $488 a year on average
The first open session during which council will discuss the city budget is Aug. 17, followed by a meeting Aug. 24. Following discussions and additional workshops, council will vote to adopt a budget and tax rate in September. A full breakdown of the proposed budget for fiscal year 2023-24 can be found here.
