In a nutshell
On Sept. 12, League City City Council voted to approve the budget for fiscal year 2023-24 with a property tax rate of $0.395 per valuation. The tax rate is lower than the no-new-revenue rate of $0.396783 and lower than the FY 2022-23 tax rate of $0.415526.
The budget also includes a tax exemption of $75,000 for seniors.
The approved budget includes funding for:
- Additional city staff and vehicles
- New and replacement equipment for public safety and public works
- Continued cash funding for the reinvestment program, which includes $750,000 to fund sidewalk repairs, according to a city news release
Some council members had questions about the budget’s deficit of $111,230 and said passing a budget with more expenditures than projected revenue was fiscally irresponsible.
“Why would we pass a budget that doesn’t balance out at zero?” Council Member Tom Crews said. “To me it just seems like we would do better to bring this back up to a zero and not have this deficit piece, even if that meant going up into the capital improvement fund, which I’m a huge proponent of expanding.”
City Manager John Baumgartner said League City has historically often passed budgets with a deficit.
“Over the years, historically we have always underestimated revenues and overestimated expenses,” Baumgartner said. “So probably four or five years ago, we took a little bit more aggressive approach to budgeting and budgeting a small deficit from year to year.”
Baumgartner added he thought the city has never ended a fiscal year with less revenue than expenditures.
Keep in mind
The entire League City FY 2023-24 budget can be viewed online.
