Fulshear council adopts ordinance to call May special election to shift EDCA sales tax toward city funds for public safety

The Fulshear City Council on a voice vote adopted an ordinance calling a special election for May 2, 2026 to reduce the A‑board (EDC A) sales‑tax allocation from 0.50 percent to 0.25 percent and to increase the city's general‑fund sales‑tax collection from 1.00 percent to 1.25 percent.

City staff presented a three‑year compensation plan for the police department that targets the 55th, 65th and 75th pay percentiles over successive years and estimated the first‑year personnel cost increase at about $1.7 million. The staff presentation said reallocating EDCA sales tax to the general fund or creating a crime control and prevention district (CCPD) are both options, but each has timing and legal tradeoffs. "That alone would not cover the increase," a city staff member said of the projected revenue from the proposed tax reallocation.

The staff said one route is a voter‑approved CCPD, which restricts spending to crime‑control and prevention programs but likely cannot be implemented in time for a May ballot; creating a CCPD would require a temporary board to adopt a draft budget and call the election. A recent state‑law change also allows the council to reallocate sales tax into the general fund and place the proposition on a single May ballot, avoiding the risk that separate ballot measures could produce a split outcome, staff warned.

Staff offered a rough example of new property value: permutations of recently permitted residential permits and valuation assumptions yielded a projected new taxable revenue of about $299,000 under staff assumptions, an amount that staff said would be far short of the $1.7 million figure. "We did permit 571 homes in the city limits in calendar year '25 ... we made an assumption of $450,000 in value for each," the staff member said while explaining the estimate.

Several council members expressed concern about placing newly reallocated funds into the general fund because that would make the dollars fungible; one council member said she preferred the CCPD option because "it doesn't get used for anything else" and because a CCPD can be structured to revert after a set term. Other council members stressed timing advantages of a May election and the budget calendar, noting that revenue approved in May would not be available immediately: staff explained that a May election's revenue impacts are typically realized in October of that year.

A motion to adopt the election ordinance was made by Mr. Kanopy and seconded by Mr. Russell; the motion carried with one "no" vote recorded. Council members directed staff to include the ordinance on the May ballot and continue work on budget modeling, ILA impacts and voter information materials. The ordinance sets the May 2, 2026 special election as the procedural next step; revenue timing and further budget decisions will follow the election results and the city's budget process.