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Boerne presents budget timeline and proposes $20 million CO for new fire station
Summary
City staff outlined the FY27 budget timeline, key assumptions and supplemental requests, and presented an initial plan of finance that includes a $20 million certificate of obligation to fund Fire Station No. 2 plus refundings intended to save interest costs without raising the tax rate.
City staff presented a budget-development update and an initial plan of finance at the Boerne City Council meeting June 23, detailing timeline, assumptions and proposed debt issuances tied to the 2026 capital-improvement program.
Sarah told council the budget process is underway: certified appraisal rolls are expected in July, the proposed draft budget will be filed Aug. 7, the first public hearing is scheduled for Aug. 25 and the second public hearing and adoption are scheduled for Sept. 9. She said staff is using a zero-based approach that removed about $2,000,000 of one-time expenses from department budgets and that departments produced roughly $400,000 of voluntary reductions. The city received 98 supplemental requests totaling $7,700,000, of which Sarah said about $5,300,000 was general-fund requests, $2,000,000 was for utilities and $400,000 was for special-revenue funds.
Sarah framed the budget objectives around three priorities: managing growth, aligning operational impacts with long-term fiscal health, and maintaining an employer-of-choice posture for staffing and retention. She said, “Our goal this year is for our general fund's operations growth to not exceed the CPI inflation index which right now is 4.2%.” She also reported preliminary taxable-value growth of about 4% year over year and noted softening in sales tax receipts (April showed about an 8.2% decrease versus last April driven by a few large taxpayers).
Separately, staff presented an initial plan of finance that would include three issuances: a certificate of obligation of $20,000,000 to fund the city’s planned Fire Station No. 2 and two refundings (staff cited roughly $6.4 million for a 2016 series and $23.4 million for a 2017 series). Sarah said structuring the issuances is intended so “none of these issuances will involve a tax rate increase.” Staff estimated potential interest-cost savings from the refundings in the range of $700,000 to $1,700,000 depending on market rates at closing. The CO for Fire Station No. 2 would fund design completion, bidding and construction phases; staff said plans call for breaking ground in 2027 and completing construction in 2028.
What’s next: staff will return July 14 with a formal plan-of-finance approval request and bring resolutions and market bids later in the budget and debt-issuance calendar; council will consider final approvals in summer and early fall as noted in the presentation.
