San Benito reviews preliminary budget; officials weigh 1¢–2¢ tax cut, raises and new positions

SAN BENITO — At a budget workshop, San Benito city officials reviewed a draft fiscal 2025–26 budget, discussing preliminary property‑tax projections, proposed pay adjustments for low‑wage employees, several new positions and assumptions for contracts and service costs.

The finance director, Stephanie, told the commission the packet uses preliminary taxable values provided by Cameron County and that each one‑cent change in the tax rate would change revenue by about $64,289 under the collection assumptions in the packet. “This is really preliminary of what we expect based on the numbers that we could collect at this time of the year,” Stephanie said, noting certified values were not yet available.

City administrators framed the workshop as an early look at spending priorities and tradeoffs. They laid out two parallel priorities: modest increases to help low‑paid and entry‑level employees, and measures to manage long‑term operating costs and debt. The packet assumes a conservative 95 percent collection rate for budgeting purposes while staff ran calculations at a 96.7 percent retention figure for some projections.

Why it matters: property taxes, sales taxes and franchise fees are the city’s principal operating revenues. Decisions at the workshop could affect the tax rate and department budgets the commission will consider in coming weeks. Officials…