The city of San Marcos is looking at a $9.7 million increase to its annual expenditures compared to last year’s budget, along with a $12.6 million increase to its revenue. San Marcos City Council members on Sept. 17 adopted a tax rate of 61.39 cents per $100 valuation, along with its budget for 2020. The tax rate has not changed from last year’s rate, but marks a 7.9% increase from the effective tax rate, which is the rate that would have levied the same amount of revenue for the city based on new appraised values. According to city documents, the increase in expenditure is “primarily due” to increases to staff pay and benefits, new positions, services and software, along with economic development incentive payments. Increases in the city’s revenue stemmed largely from base sales tax and outlet mall revenue, increases in appraised values, new construction, as well as the growth in the city’s utility customer base, according to documents presented to the City Council at their Sept. 17 meeting. In an emailed statement to Community Impact Newspaper, Mayor Jane Hughson said she supports the adopted budget, as it reflects the city’s strategic initiatives: workforce housing, multimodal transportation, workforce development, downtown vitality and city facilities. “We continue to offer and support our core services; fire, police, EMS, streets, electric, water, wastewater, resource recovery (trash and recycling,) library, parks, green spaces, animal protection, and more,” Hughson stated. “This is what our taxpayers expect of us, and our departments do an excellent job of delivering those services.” Though not hinting at any changes in the city’s budgeting process in the future, Hughson said she thinks that the city’s break during the month of July may lead to time constraints for city staff. “The July break meant that the finance/budget staff had to prepare for two evenings of workshops in June, with one less month of the current year factored into the budget projections,” Hughson wrote. “Since the chief appraiser reports to us the projected tax base by July 25, we need to give the finance/budget staff the time to work through those numbers for the upcoming fiscal year budget.”