The City of Pasadena City Council adopted the annual budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2024, and ending Sept. 30, 2025, and approved a property tax rate of 0.474834 during its Sept. 3 meeting at City Hall.

The budget includes a 3% cost-of-living increase for city employees, a sick leave buyback program, no increase to health insurance premiums, increased longevity pay and funding for capital items described in the meeting, including parking-lot work and an animal shelter generator. Mayor Wagner said, “I'm gonna be supporting the budget,” listing employee pay and selected capital needs among the reasons for his vote.

The discussion focused on whether the council needed to raise taxes. Resident Keith Nelson urged the council to reject a tax increase, saying, “I come to you today to ask you to reject the tax increase…over the last 8 years, my taxes on my house have doubled.” Several council members said the city's fund balance — cited in the meeting as “almost $120,000,000” — and the legally required reserve (quoted in the meeting as about $36,000,000) meant the city could meet priorities without increasing the tax burden on residents.

Council members debated procedure and possible amendments. One council member proposed an amendment to change education pay for officers, but the mayor noted written amendments were required and did not accept that oral amendment. Despite intermittent attempts and a motion described in the record to increase the tax rate, the council completed a roll-call process for the budget and for the tax-rate ordinance before returning to other business.

Formal actions recorded in the meeting included adoption of Ordinance 2024159 (the annual budget) and Ordinance 2024160 (setting the property tax rate at 0.474834). The motion to adopt the budget was moved and seconded on the record (motion by Ibarra; second by Dow). The tax-rate ordinance required and received roll-call action at the meeting; individual roll-call responses are on the official minutes. The meeting record shows the ordinances passed and the budget and tax rate were adopted on Sept. 3, 2024.

The council closed public hearings previously held on the budget and scheduled a separate meeting (Sept. 5, 2024, at 6 p.m.) to adopt the 2024 tax rate, as announced during the meeting.

The council also discussed a related item: the proposed budget includes the funding packages described above and uses existing fund balance authority and other appropriations to cover identified items.