Taylor’s finances for the next fiscal year, which includes the city property tax rate as a factor, will begin to be budgeted Thursday.
On July 21, the Taylor City Council will conduct its first budget workshop of the year and review the preliminary budget for 2023. Council members and city staff will have an interactive discussion during the workshop.
The preliminary budget was presented July 14 by Chief Financial Officer Jeff Wood. The budget’s theme is “Moving Forward.”
“Since I’ve been here and prior to me coming, there was a lot of talk about growth was coming to Taylor,” said Wood. “Over and over and over again, we mentioned growth was coming, growth was coming, growth was coming. A couple of years ago, we started planning for that growth.”
As Wood noted, new developments will almost certainly bring new citizens, more streets and utility infrastructure, more stores and more traffic. More residents means more demand on municipal services and additional costs to maintain the added streets and other infrastructure. Some of the increase in demand of services occurs at the start of the development cycle, such as increased plan review and permit issuance, and an increase in financial analysis and planning. New development also increases the demands on the current water and sewer infrastructures, and Wood says ensuring the integrity of these systems to support growth occurs at the start of the development cycle.
“Now is time to move forward. Now is time to put boots on the ground. Now is time to put money to work,” said Wood, and that’s what this budget does.”
The budget is partially based on the preliminary estimated property tax rate of 64-66 cents per $100 valuation
“That’s down significantly from the 76.5 cents we’re at this year,” said Wood. “We’ll know more about what that tax rate is once we get the final numbers from the county.”
According to Wood, property tax revenues have been budgeted at $8.86 million for general operations and $3.91 million for debt service. That said, there are still some variables in play.
“We can pretty easily or pretty accurately estimate what the revenue’s going to be but because there’s so much property under review yet, we don’t know how the actual property numbers are going to fall,” said Wood, “and that determines what the tax rate’s going to be.”
The council meeting is at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 400 Porter St., in the council chamber. Those wishing to address the council have a threeminute limit and must sign up by 5:45 p.m.
The council agenda and live video stream of the meeting can be found at http://www. taylortx.gov.
