Flower Mound reviews $112 million bond package for parks, trails, CAC and street work ahead of May vote

Flower Mound town staff on Thursday presented a Blue Ribbon Committee recommendation for roughly $112 million in potential bond-funded projects and outlined next steps if the council opts to place the measures on a May 2025 ballot.

The committee’s package includes a proposed renovation and expansion of the Community Activity Center (CAC), an $82 million parks/trails/recreation bundle assembled by Parks staff, several trail segments to improve connectivity, a synthetic-turf conversion of an existing sports field, west-side park and RV improvements, a 24-hour self-service library kiosk, and a $30 million street reconstruction proposition focused on older pavements. Town leaders said the proposal aims to address aging infrastructure without increasing the overall tax rate.

Why it matters: Council and staff said long-term financial changes at the state level and rising maintenance needs have constrained operating reserves and pushed capital needs toward debt financing. Council members and staff described the proposal as a way to use debt for long-lived capital while shifting operational costs to dedicated sales-tax revenue and preserving generational equity — the principle that current and future users share capital costs.

What staff presented

John (staff member) walked the council through the bond strategy and the Blue Ribbon Committee process, saying the committee narrowed a broad list of needs and landed on a recommendation “roughly a $112,000,000 worth of projects,” including the CAC renovation, streets, west-side projects, turf fields, parks and trails. On the financing approach, he said staff modeled scenarios that, in their view, “show we can take this on without increasing the total tax rate” by shifting operations onto sales-tax-funded maintenance and funding capital through interest-and-sinking (I&S) debt.

Public engagement and survey results

Sarah (public engagement staff) summarized four in-person events and an online survey with 131 respondents. She said in-person activities (a sticker chart and a mock ballot) showed strong support for street reconstruction and the CAC renovation, while the online results were more polarized: “36% of the individuals that took that survey fall into 1 of 2 categories — they either unanimously approved of all the bond items or they disapproved of nearly every one of them,” she said,…