City manager outlines adopted $330 million budget, adds firefighters and police, and details water-and-wastewater capital program

City Manager Catherine summarized the city’s recently adopted budget and walked council through revenue trends, service priorities and a multi-year capital program.

"Temple is among the fastest growing cities in the nation," City Manager Catherine said, noting the city had officially exceeded a 100,000 population threshold. She told the council the total adopted budget for FY 2026 including all funds and reinvestment zone revenue is just shy of $330,000,000.

Catherine said the general fund—where police, fire, parks, library and other general services are paid—receives its largest revenue from sales tax, followed by property tax and charges for services. She explained that strong sales-tax growth after the pandemic allowed the city to reduce property-tax reliance in recent years but that sales-tax growth has since slowed, increasing pressure on property-tax revenues.

Major budget and service priorities the council funded in this cycle include: - Fire: 10 new firefighter positions added as the first step in a six-year plan to add 70 firefighters, and new staffing for the fire marshal's office; the goal is to split the city into two response districts (east and west of I-35). - Police: Four new officers — two assigned to a new training program at the city's training facility and two added to patrol as the city adds patrol districts. - Fleet and solid waste: A second fleet shift to enable preventative maintenance outside active collection hours and three additional solid-waste routes (residential landfill, recycling and a side-load commercial route) to address sustained growth and collection reliability.

Catherine outlined a roughly $265,000,000 water-and-wastewater capital program that includes projects such as: first-phase aquifer-storage-and-recovery (ASR) work and expansions to the membrane-treatment plant, rehabilitation of storage and treatment facilities, new elevated storage tanks and multiple trunk-sewer and lift-station improvements. She also noted the city’s ongoing program to reduce sanitary-sewer overflows, basin-by-basin assessments and corrective work.

On taxation, Catherine said the city council adopted a tax rate this year of 69.99 cents. She explained the city offers a homestead freeze for residents 65 and older that freezes the tax bill (not appraised value) and summarized the state-disabled-veterans exemption program and its partial statewide reimbursement to local governments. Catherine warned that the statewide reimbursement for disabled-veterans exemptions remains at a fixed statewide allocation and that as local participation grows the city's net reimbursement rate may fall.

Catherine closed by describing operational constraints: wage and inflationary pressures increase personnel and equipment costs; in some cases identical equipment ordered months apart has risen substantially in price. She said staff and council will continue to explore funding options for street maintenance and other priorities that were not funded this cycle. Council and staff agreed to combine the November and December meetings and to bring a summary presentation back on Dec. 10.