Tomball City Council approves budget change for EDC staff restructuring

Tomball City Council approved an $80,000 budget amendment March 16 to let the Tomball Economic Development Corp. reorganize staff, adding new roles.

City officials said the move will add internal capacity while reducing some outside consulting costs and trying to keep up with the city’s growth and a rising number of projects.

What happened

TEDC Executive Director Kelly Violette told council the corporation’s workload has expanded in recent years while its staffing structure has remained largely unchanged. She said a 2020 organizational assessment identified the need for a higher-level marketing and communications position, but TEDC did not move forward at the time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Violette said that need has continued as TEDC takes on projects such as Tomball Legacy Square, coordinates stakeholder meetings and manages broader economic development efforts. She told the council the corporation is “flailing” under its current structure and outsourcing work it could potentially handle in-house.

What this means

Under the approved restructuring, TEDC will keep its executive director and assistant director positions while adding a project manager role, a new marketing and communications manager position and a revised coordinator role. The plan also eliminates the administrative assistant position, resulting in a net increase of one employee, Violette said.

She said the project manager would help oversee major initiatives such as Legacy Square and other strategic projects, while the marketing and communications manager would handle recruitment, messaging, branding and community engagement efforts. Bringing some of that work in-house could save TEDC an estimated $20,000-$40,000 annually in outside consultant costs, she said.

The budget amendment covers salary and benefits tied to the restructuring. Violette said the impact is projected at about $80,000 for the current fiscal year because TEDC likely would only fund the positions for about four months after hiring. The full annual impact in fiscal year 2026-27 is expected to be about $160,000. Even with the change, TEDC’s ending fund balance is projected at about $14.4 million if all planned projects move forward, she said.

Also of note

Council members asked whether TEDC should wait until the next budget cycle to add the marketing position, but others said the corporation has been understaffed for years and should move forward if it finds qualified candidates. Officials also discussed TEDC’s current reliance on outside marketing services for social media and web presence, which Violette said the new in-house role could eventually absorb.