Sugar Land staff on Tuesday presented to city council options such as reducing hiring and eliminating holiday events as the council works to balance the city’s fiscal year 2018 budget and to fill a $1.1 million budget shortfall.

City council on Sept. 19 adopted a property tax rate of $0.31762 per $100 taxable value, which coupled with a $500,000 reduction in expected sales tax revenue, does not fully fund the $230.9 million budget that was assembled months ago.

“We have seen a deterioration in the [sales tax] revenue stream in [FY 2017] for the last three months that has caused us to believe that we need to go back and lower our sales tax projection for [FY 2018],” City Manager Allen Bogard said.

“We just have to cut, in essence, about $1.1 million out of the budget,” said Jennifer Brown, Sugar Land’s director of finance.

Staff proposed city council cut bridge the gap by reducing its general fund contingency by $200,000, eliminating certain city holiday events such as its New Year’s Eve celebrations and its Fourth of July Star-Spangled Spectacular, and adjusting salary structures for employees.

The majority of council members opposed reducing employee salaries and merit pools.

“I, too, have no interest in cutting anything on the employee side of it,” Council Member Himesh Gandhi said. “Our employees work extremely hard, and their demands have increased year over year over year...It’s the people that makes this organization run.”

Council members also need to consider the added costs the city incurred in dealing with Hurricane Harvey, budget officer Justin Alderete said.

Many residents who were affected by Harvey, especially in Chimneystone and Settlers Park, need assistance, Bogard said.

“What we have done is try to identify where we may have flexibility within the current budget or next year’s budget to be able to have some limited, additional funding available to take care of needs associated with Harvey,” Bogard said.

Suspending work on park bond projects will allow the city to free up some debt service capacity to support Harvey-related projects, Brown said.

City council may also choose to reprioritize and postpone capital improvement projects to pay for Harvey-related costs, said assistant city manager Chris Steubing.

For example, the city is putting money towards several engineering and drainage studies with different entities such as the Fort Bend County Levee Improvement District 2 and the Brazos River Authority to evaluate infrastructure and identify projects that may assist the city in future emergencies, Steubing said.

Reappraisal costs and lost property tax revenue will roughly equate to $75,000, Brown said.

City council is expected to vote on the proposed budget amendments Oct. 17, according to meeting documents.