Crockett council approves proposed tax rate and reviews draft 2026 budget; water, streets and staffing highlighted

The Crockett City Council voted to approve a proposed tax rate and reviewed a draft fiscal-year 2026 budget that city staff said would preserve operations while leaving most capital requests unfunded.

City Administrator John Angerstein said the city's draft maintenance-and-operations (M&O) rate in the budget is 0.4795 and that the no-new-revenue rate calculated for the city is 0.4747. "The maintenance and operations budget required to fund this budget from taxes is 2,052,000," Angerstein told council during the discussion. He said the voter-approval rate allowed by state law could be set higher and that adopting that rate would yield roughly "$170,000" in additional money that could be appropriated to capital items such as streets or new positions.

The draft budget as presented allocates a dedicated street-construction line and a mix of general fund and utility fund changes. On utilities, staff proposed raising the consumption rate on water from 54.9 per 100 gallons to 63 per 100 gallons to generate roughly $157,000 to cover bonds tied to the wastewater treatment plant and a water well; Angerstein said the change would increase the average residential…