Gunter officials present tight budget, propose voter-approval tax rate and restore street fund

Gunter city leaders presented an updated budget that staff said narrows a projected shortfall but still leaves little cushion for unexpected costs, and flagged an option to use the voter-approval tax rate (56¢) to fully cover the proposed expenditures.

At the meeting the chair (unnamed in the transcript) walked council members through revenue, expenditures and the mechanics of a tax increment-sharing agreement (TERS) that affects how developer-generated value is split. The presentation showed the city could collect more revenue under the voter-approval rate; staff estimated the city would receive roughly $560,000 from TERS-related levy changes under that scenario, versus a smaller amount under the 'no-new' rate.

Finance-related staff told the council they located funds previously misclassified in the city's ledger: about $495,000 that had been found in a tech-school/water account and will be reclassified and returned to the streets fund so the streets department's core, "bare-bones" budget could be reinstated. The chair said the discovery allows partial restoration of a street budget that had appeared depleted in earlier records.

City staff repeatedly warned councilors the budget is tight: the proposed spending plan leaves only limited operating reserves and the city must plan to operate through a three-month window before property-tax receipts arrive. The chair said departments had already cut discretionary items and that councilors should come to a final decision quickly to allow the budget to be locked for Monday’s adoption.

What changed this week: staff updated personnel-cost numbers (a TML-type increase cited during the presentation) and corrected ledger classifications; an audit of journal entries prompted the reclassification work and the staff said those corrections will allow repayment of the streets fund from the water/tech-school account.

Next steps: Councilors were asked to review the updated budget documents over the weekend and notify staff of any desired changes before a scheduled Monday adoption. No final tax-rate decision was announced at the meeting; council members discussed options and trade-offs between the no-new-tax-rate scenario and using the voter-approval rate to avoid deeper cuts to services.