The City of Brownwood is keeping a tight rein on its spending due to the economic downturn and decreased sales tax and water sales in recent months.
During his budgetary control report to Brownwood City Council members on Tuesday, Finance Director Walter Middleton explained the current financial situation.
Middleton said, “Because we are concerned about our sales tax collections being down and our water sales, at least for the first month of the fiscal year being down, we have limited access to some of the budget funds by our departments.”
Middleton outlined that sales tax revenue is down 7.2% for October and November combined as compared to the same time period as last year.
“Two months does not constitute a trend, but if you look several months back at the last fiscal year, we’ve been down for a while,” Middleton said. “So we don’t anticipate in the short term that we’re going to see any great improvement and so we are being careful as I said earlier on the expense side because of that.”
Regarding water sales revenue he said, “The month of September was a pretty wet month and that reflected in our October billing.”
For October, the city’s water sales were down about 20,000 units which equaled approximately $42,000 less income for the month.
Part of the city’s tactic for watching this decrease in revenue is holding off on filling vacant city employee positions.
“We are watching the filling of positions that have gone vacant,” Middleton said. “We’re not characterizing that as a hiring freeze by any means, but we are looking at each one carefully and particularly in the filling of new positions that have been created. We have put that off for a little while.”
He also explained, “We want to be prudent in what is going on with the economy and its effect on our budget.”
Other actions taken and business discussed in the November 24, 2009 Brownwood City Council Meeting:
-Council amended an Ordinance on 1st reading regarding the closing hours of Riverside Park. The new closing time for the park will be at dusk and will allow the city manager to change park hours as an administrative decision.
-Council approved an Ordinance on 1st reading to establish new traffic control signs in certain places around the city. Most notable is changing 9 yield signs to stop signs along side streets connecting to Austin Avenue.
-Council approved a pair of resolutions ratifying Civil Service Commission guidelines for the Fire Department and Police Department in taking promotional examinations.
-City Council accepted a bid of $70,564 from Big County Ford for the purchase of 3 new police cars.
-Emily Crawford, Director of Tourism and Market at the Brownwood Area Chamber of Commerce, gave the council a report showing that tourism is up in the city. Crawford said that although hotel occupancy rates in the state are down about 15.5%, the city of Brownwood’s levels are down only 4.8% and 1.7% for the county as a whole. She also said that $47.1 million in direct visitors spending came into Brown County in 2008 according to a state report. This was a 9% increase over 2007 levels.
-Council was also given an update on the construction projects of the Sr. Citizens Recreation Center and the Family Aquatics Center which are moving along as planned.
