The Woodlands Township board of directors Aug. 20, accepted a preliminary budget with a projected $175 million in operating revenue for fiscal year 2026. The board also discussed fire department response times, budgeting for law enforcement needs and a budget initiative for Town Center elevator modernization. Budget workshops concluded Aug. 21 with a decision to propose a tax rate of $0.1714 per $100 assessment for the 2026 fiscal year.
The details
Among the budget requests discussed this week during budget workshops were an increase of $2 million, or 6%, over the 2025 budget from The Woodlands Fire Department for items including a new fleet technician and 3.5% salary increases. During discussion at the Aug. 18 meeting, Fire Chief Palmer Buck also shared information about the department’s average response times, which he said have increased from five minutes to six minutes and 14 seconds in the last five years. Buck attributed this to increased call volume and traffic, among other factors.
On Aug. 20, board members requested more information about the response time increases and how those could be addressed.
“We continue to look for ways to manage our response times,” Buck said. “As we continue to grow and add not only horizontally, but vertically, we will be challenged to meet our response times.”
What else?
Requests from the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, with which The Woodlands contracts for law enforcement, included $864,303 for new items, including four additional sergeants, 30 Flock cameras and a Polaris Ranger. President and CEO Monique Sharp said funding was available for about $264,000 of those requests, but not the $600,000 for four additional sergeants at this time.
The board also discussed an initiative to modernize the elevators in the Town Center area, some of which are over 20 years old, according to budget documents. The 2026 budget includes $410,000 to replace two broken elevators at Mall Ring Road and Waterway Avenue. According to the budget, three other elevators would be modernized in the following years, including:
- Elevator at Woodloch Bridge in 2027
- Waterway Square brick elevator in 2028
- Waterway Square glass elevator in 2029
Learn more
The proposed tax rate is the same as the rate adopted in 2024 for the FY 2025 budget, which was also $0.1714 per $100 assessment.
The proposed tax rate includes the following:
- Debt service tax rate of 0.0102 per $100 assessment
- Maintenance and operations tax rate of 0.1612 per $100 assessment
A public hearing will take place on Sept. 4, when the board will also vote to adopt the budget for fiscal year 2026.
Recordings of the budget meetings are available on the township’s website.
