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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1988-09-03 - Special City CouncilMINUTES OF SPECIAL MEETING City of Stephenville - City Council TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1988 - 5:30 P.M. The City Council of the City of.Stephenville, Texas, convened in special session 5.'.14v A.ton September 13, 1988 at ''p.m. in the Council Chambers of City Hall, 354 N. Belknap, with the meeting being open to the public and notice of said meeting, giving the date, time, place and subject thereof, having been posted as prescribed by Article 6252 -17, Section 3A, V.T.C.S., with the following members present, to wit: Mayor Pro Tem: Councilmembers: Allen Horne Bob Self Helen Martin Vicki L. Truss Maxine Dameron James L. McSwain Jim Bostic Joel M. Hillin Absent: None Others Attending: Kurt Ackermann City Administrator Joyce Pemberton City Secretary Charlene Young Director of Finance Joseph Chandler City Attorney Randy Thomas Assistant City Attorney Mayor Pro Tem Allen Horne called the meeting to order and declared a quorum pre- sent. Mayor Pro Tem Horne said the purpose of this meeting was to conduct a public hearing on the proposed tax rate for the budget year 1988 -1989. The proposed tax rate for the next year is 41.090 per $100.00 valuation. This represents an increase of 1.790 over last year's tax rate of 39.3x. At this time Mayor Pro Tem Horne opened the floor for a public hearing to hear comments regarding the proposed tax rate. THOSE OPPOSED TO PROPOSED TAX RATE: MR. A. C. KEEVER, 1190 Charlotte St., President of Erath County Tax- payers Association, representing the Association, addressed the Council stating that the Association feels the 1987 -1988 budget must be addressed also because there is where the big increase came and with the increase this year, a little under 8 %. In view of the increase last year, most of the Association members have reached the point where they are not able to survive with any more taxes. The tax rate does not go up so much, but the appraisal board keeps raising the property and thats where a big fault comes in. Mr. Keever went into great detail in comparing Stephenville with other cities. He also said the Association was opposing the proposed tax rate because they think, and still have hopes, of a tax rollback and they are going to continue to pursue that as far as they can. When they lose all recourses in court they may throw in the towel on that but they will still be around doing all they can. The ECTA is here to stay. MR. DANNY KARNES, 1670 South Loop, addressed the Council stating that he was opposed to the proposed tax rate because he feels there are places in the budget that can be cut or at lease better managed. There could be some "shopping" on insurance. As far as the tax rate, look at the ability of the people to pay. The present economy does not allow the people to be burdened with more taxes. As he does not live in the city limits and does not have a vote, this meeting is the only way he has of voicing his opinions. He pays taxes on his busi- ness and does not feel it is right for him not to have a vote in the city elections. He feels that the increase in airport hangar fees is wrong. The personal property tax collected on the planes were not - 130 - included in the budget and should have been attributed to the airport budget. He feels a lot of revenue from the hangar rental will be lost because of the increase in rent and owners will move their planes to other cities. Will also lose fuel sales and the Council is trying to burden a few people for the many. There are some things that should be "user" supported but not the airport. It is a city operation that we will have to have no matter what but as far as the taxes are concerned he hopes the Council will look at the economy around before they start adding on and wait for a better economy. MRS. GLENDA JACKSON, 403 Crow St., addressed the Council stating: I am definitely against the increased tax raises. I don't oppose taxes going up some but not all at one time and two years in a row is going to be kind of rough. I know you have your minds made up so its really not doing any good. Its just really leting people know how we feel. I know there's an election coming up and its not going to took too good, Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, when the election comes around and the people are still having to dig in their pockets next summer to pay this increase in taxes. You might consider that. Another thing, I don't know if any of you are familiar with Project Hope except for reading it in the news, but if you'll go down there and ask Ms. Rittenour what her computer says about the needy. Yes, the needy has to pay taxes even if they are only renters because if the landlord's taxes go up, guess who has to pay that tax increase? The poor people. This town, up until the last few years, has not had all that many poor people but it has started to get that way. There are even starting to be some "street people ". My heart goes out to the needy and if there's any way I can help anyone, I want to help. I think my call right now to help is to fight these increased taxes. I like Mr. Keever and I do appreciate your having most of your city employees here but the few people from ECTA that got to come tonight are trying to help ALL the people in town and not just a select few. THOSE IN FAVOR OF THE PROPOSED TAX RATE: MR. DEAN CLARK, a City Police Officer, addressed the Council stating the city employees deserve a raise. The employees work hard for the people in this town. He said he had been here nine years and liked the town and we need the raise. MR. DOUG GASSETT, 702 Jackson, addressed the Council stating: Does it cost money to have water in this town? Does it cost money to have a sewer system? Does it cost money to have police protection? Does cost money to have a fire department? Without these things we don't have a town. It costs money to do these things and we need taxes to pay for them. We don't see anybody volunteering a bunch of money for that purpose. Some folks hollered about Weatherford. Is there some way Weatherford subsidizes their budget? Mayor Pro Tem Horne answered that Weatherford had a city -owned electric utility which produces $15 million in revenue. We have a real nice town and we have people here who want to keep it that way and it costs a LOT of money to do it. There being no one else present wishing to comment on this issue, Mayor Pro Tem Horne closed the public hearing and asked for comments from Councilmembers. Councilmember Jim Bostic stated: I don't believe there would be near the dissension, the protest of the taxes if the petition had not been handled the way it was last year. If the previous Council had did what they was required to by law and called the election, I don't know how it would have came out, but I personally feel it would have passed and the rollback would have failed and we wouldn't have all this controversy. We wouldn't have the ECTA and, if somehow, we can get this to a vote for the past year's budget, we could get all this settled once and for all. I agree that there's many things we cut out of this year's budget that we really need; things I would approve but, if the majority of the citizens are against it, I don't know, but there was enough signatures for an election but our previous Council didn't call it. We can settle this, I'm talking to the Council mainly, we could settle these questions..ECTA questions—tax questions very easily if we could just bring it to a vote and we'll find out what the sentiments of the majority of the taxpayers are. - 131 - Mayor Pro Tem Allen Horne stated there were several things he would like to say regarding the petition, but on advice of the City Attorney, he couldn't. Mayor Pro Tem Allen Horne said he had a few comments he would like to make in regard to the ad ECTA put in the Stephenville Empire Tribune on September 11, 1988. The Mayor Pro Tem read from a prepared state- ment as follows: First of all the ad reported the proposed city budget to be approxi- mately 8 million dollars, when in fact the proposed budget is set at 6.3 million dollars. This is a difference of 1.7 million dollars (a significant difference as reported to the taxpayer in the ad) Secondly several comparisons were done by ECTA to the City of Weatherford. Population comparisons done by ECTA show Weatherford to be larger than Stephenville when in fact Weatherford reports 14,600 compared to Stephenville at 15,450. ECTA reported the Stephenville Fire Budget to be $788,531. The actual budget is $481,123 which compares favorably to Weatherford's $482,000 Fire Budget. It should be noted that the Weatherford Fire Dept. responds only to fire calls within the city limits, while Stephenville Fire Dept. covers 2/3 of Erath County. These are the comparisons reported by ECTA to the Taxpayers of Stephenville: 1. Weatherford's proposed tax rate is 41.491 while Stephenville is at a proposed rate of 41.090 2. Weatherford has 173 employees while Stephenville has only 103 employees. Which explains when comparing personnel costs Weatherford has a personnel budget of approx. 4.7 million compared to Stephenville's 2.7 million. 3. Weatherford's budget of 9 million dollars, which I might add is subsidized by a 15 million dollar revenue producing city -owned electric utility, is 3 million dollars greater than Stephenville's. 4. In response to ECTA's comments regarding runaway salary increases, the following comparisons were done with the City of Weatherford: These comparisons were done base salary to base salary. Weatherford Stephenville City Manager 55,994 as compared to 49,644 Dir. of Finance 53,498 37,032 City Sec. 31,491 23,880 Public Wks. Dir 36,754 35,196 Fire Chief 33,758 35,196 W /WW Super 31,450 28,320 Asst.Fire Chief 28,621 28,332 Cemetery Tech No Position No Positio Park Sec 15,454 17,400 In summary the Stephenville median base pay is $19,333.00 per employee white the national median pay is $29,317.00. ECTA continues to charge the median city employee salary is $9,000.00 dollars more than the median per capita income in Stephenville. It should be noted that per capita income includes every man, woman, and child living in the City of Stephenville regardless of whether they are a wage earner or not. Therefore this is not a fair comparison. At this time I will set Tuesday, September 20, 1988 at 5:30 pm in Council Chambers at City Hall, 354 N. Belknap, as the date, time, and place of a council meeting to consider adopting the proposed tax rate. There being no further comments from the Council, Mayor Pro Tem Horne adjourned the meeting at 5:45 p.m. - 132 - ATTEST: �� ity Secretary - 133 -