Projects in the plan include roadway construction, new public safety facilities and new parks.
The details
Parks and roadway projects will be getting a majority of the funds next year, Assistant City Manager Kim Brawner said.
“That is directly driven from the customer service surveys that say those are the two things that we need to be spending our dollars on,” she said.
General government projects named in the CIP plans include, among other projects:
- Building Ousley Park and Wilson Creek Park
- Constructing the Downtown Center and parking garage
- Constructing an emergency services dispatch center
- Building and equipping Fire Station No. 4
- Expanding downtown WiFi
- Street repairs and new construction across the city
- Funding for new school zone signs, traffic signals and construction equipment
- Constructing an elevated storage tank and second ground storage tank
- Funding a new pump station and transmission line
- Paying for annual maintenance repairs to the city’s drainage systems
Funding the projects
Paying for the $757.25 million projects will come from existing city funds, city fees, tax increment reinvestment zone funds and a mix of certificates of obligation and general obligation bonds.
The difference between certificates of obligation (COs) and general obligation bonds (GOs) are how they can be approved—COs can be approved by the city while GOs must be taken to the voters for approval.
Some council members said during the Nov. 12 meeting they would want to bring as many of the projects to the residents as possible.
City Manager Rob Ranc said the funding sources for the projects can be an ongoing discussion for the city to determine what is best. Celina’s “core infrastructure projects” will likely be funded through COs to keep the city on schedule while “quality of life projects” such as parks and less-urgent projects can be a proposition in a bond election, he said.
If a project failed to pass during an election, the city cannot fund it through a CO for three years. City officials can call for a bond election annually.
In case you missed it
Council members last discussed their CIP plans during an Oct. 8 meeting. A city staff presentation during the meeting focused on the cost for projects in 2025 alone and listed the total as $196.9 million.
The real expected cost for the projects planned for 2025 is actually $202.7 million, Assistant City Manager Karla Stovall said.
One last thing
Celina officials estimate the city’s population will grow to more than 100,000 people by 2030, according to a meeting presentation. The population growth is expected to happen alongside major commercial growth—the city has already been approached by several big-box retailers interested in coming to Celina in the coming years, according to the presentation.
“We recognize we are the fastest-growing city in America,” Stovall said.
The larger the city’s population and commercial base, the more sources of taxable revenue there are to fund Celina’s general fund and debt service fund. Celina’s property tax value increased by $2.06 billion in fiscal year 2024-25 alone, according to the presentation.
