LONGVIEW, Texas — The City of Longview presented its proposed budget for the next fiscal year on Thursday night, and it’s a bit tighter this year than years past.
"By far this was the most difficult budget that I’ve been a part of," said Longview City Manager Rolin McPhee.
McPhee has been faced with a real challenge this year in trying to balance the city’s budget. Longview is projected to make just over $95 million in revenue next fiscal year, while department requests have totaled more than $102 million.
"And over 20 years of experience as part of the budget team, the initial request versus revenues were the furthest apart in their experience," McPhee said.
City revenue is limited by a few things. Legislation restricts the city from growing more than three and a half percent in property tax revenue, while McPhee said general inflation has increased at a higher rate than that. The city also gets revenue from sales tax, but McPhee said that’s been down due to people shopping less. There’s not much the city can do to just increase the money coming in.
"The only thing that we can impact on our revenue side is our permits, fees, and fines, and that’s probably the smallest portion of the general fund revenue," said McPhee.
McPhee mentioned a slight decrease in road maintenance, a slight increase in water prices, and a lack of wage increases for city employees as consequences of the restricted budget. But, all of city council and Mayor Kristen Ishihara, want to see city employees get paid.
"Inflation is up, budgets are down in general, that’s true for personal individuals, so we understand it at a city level. But, I think what you heard from council tonight is that commitment to city employees. That even though we appreciate and understand the need for that balanced budget, that we want to see if there’s a creative opportunity to figure out how to include making sure that our city employees, who are very valued and do a great job, get some sort of cost of living increase," Ishihara said.
They’ve tasked McPhee and the budget team with going back to the drawing board to revise the budget, and come back with wage increases included for city employees.
"I anticipate that at our Aug. 8 meeting, Rolin, or Mr. McPhee, will bring back some options for council to discuss and consider what we feel like we could maybe work in somehow next year, in acknowledgement of the cost of living increases," said Ishihara.