“I think we ultimately got a budget here that we can be proud of,” Council Member Luke Orlando said. “A huge priority is making sure we have quality people whether that is our first responders or finance team or whatever city staff that we have. We need to have good people in the right chairs.”
Pearland is expecting to bring in $498.32 million in revenue and have $572.98 million in expenditures for FY 2021-22, according to agenda documents. Approximately $177.47 million of those expenditures are a result of bonds for 2022, 2023 and 2024 to be used for water and sewer capital projects, according to agenda documents.
Additionally, the FY 2021-22 budget includes a step-pay plan with a 25% cap that will allow most of the city’s workers to reach their market value pay. It also includes a civil service police pay plan for sworn police officers, a sick leave buy back plan and a bilingual position certification pay program.
The City Council also approved the property tax rate of $0.701416 per $100 valuation, which is about $0.0068 lower than the $0.708250 property tax rate City Council approved on the first reading on Sept. 13.
City Council approved an amendment to reduce the general fund revenue from a total of about $100.35 million to $99.6 million—a decrease of $751,636—to go along with the decrease in property tax rate. The reduction of $751,636 was originally going to be allocated for an emergency storage fund that City Council opted to remove.
The next City Council meeting will be held Oct. 11 at 6:30 p.m.
