Carthage proposing 58 cent tax rate for 2023 budget | News

“It still just keeps us relatively flat,” Hudman said of the proposed tax rate on Monday during a budget workshop.

The city will set up public hearings on the tax rate and budget in the coming weeks before it adopts the budget.

Hudman said the four percent cost of living increase includes a one percent longevity adjustment and factors in a six percent cost increase in medical insurance. The city is also dealing with an estimated 11 percent increase on the cost of everything else.

The city also proposes to add a paid firefighter, bringing them back up to the staff levels they had a few years ago.

In the general fund, which governs the city’s day-to-day operations (excluding water and sewer), the city is budgeting the addition of one new vehicle for the streets department and two for the police department. That is part of a city program to replace aging vehicles in their fleet.

In addition, the proposed budget includes several new pieces of equipment, including a roller for the streets department, a mower for the parks department and mobile radios for both police and firefighters. Hudman said the radios are being covered by an ETCOG grant.

Hudman said the city was budgeting a total revenue of $7.5 million and expenditures of $8.2 million, the difference being a $700,000 loss that represents building in renovations to the police and fire building.

City Manager Steve Williams said that item was put in the proposed budget so that city officials could talk about it. The police and fire building is one that officials have been discussing for several years.

“That’s what I’m proposing here, that’s up for y’all to discuss, decide, you can do it alone, (do) what you want to do on that. I did plug that in here just to have that discussion,” he said.

In the water and sewer fund, which is separate from the general fund, Hudman said they budgeted for a new vehicle in the water distribution department, as well as a Bobcat and a backhoe.

“A big note in the water and sewer fund is that this is based on water and sewer revenue projections and includes the recommended rate that they’re going to do our rates through Oct. 1,” Hudman said, noting the city has been studying its water rates and will be looking at the results of the study later this summer.

The added firefighter would mean Fire Marshal Randy Liedtke would work Monday through Friday, and then six paid firefighters (two to a shift), would also be on the clock in addition to the department’s numerous volunteers, Williams said.

“I talked to Randy a little bit yesterday, and he’s working somewhere between 60 and 70 hours a week,” Williams said. “What he’s doing, he just can’t sustain that. So this would take us back we’re about four years ago.”

Hudman said the city has applied for a grant to fund the additional firefighter, but they will not hear if they were awarded the grant until the fall and the proposed budget assumes they will not get the grant.

Hudman noted the police department has been seeing more overtime costs because of turnover in the dispatch department. New dispatchers must first train with veterans for three or four months before they can do the job alone.

“We do have a lot of time invested in training our dispatchers, and we keep having turnover there, I would say that we have actually had more trouble retaining dispatchers than that keeping our police officer positions filled in the last few years,” Hudman said. . “I made several calls. This is not unique to our department, this is statewide. And so it does become an increasing problem with counties and cities. And so they’re now being required to have as much training as our police officers, with exception to tactical training.”

Hudman and Williams said turnover could be attributed to both the stress of the job and the fact that it’s shift work, being dispatchers sometimes have to work odd hours.

Hudman said, under the proposed budget, the city was not planning to replace Commercial Inspector David Thompson, who is retiring in March.

Panola County is seeing a $1.7 billion increase in property tax values, and Hudman said Carthage is likewise seeing a jump there as well — but for the past several years it has been sales tax revenues that have been a major contributor to the city’s budget.

“Would it be fair to say that our property tax income was becoming less relevant through the years, a smaller portion of our revenues?” Mayor Lin Joffrion asked Monday.

“That’s correct,” Hudman said. “Sales tax revenue makes up about 50 percent of our budgeted revenue and property taxes make up about 21 percent.”

Hudman said only about 20 percent of the property tax revenues come from the oil and gas industry, meaning the city doesn’t see as big swings in revenue as the county or Carthage ISD does since oil and gas makes up more of their revenues.

Williams added that the additional sales tax revenue — this year the city is expected to get about $5.8 million in total — has meant that they’ve been able to keep the tax rate low for residents. She says they budgeted sales tax revenue based on a five-year average.

“We’ve been blessed in the last several years that the increases in our budget have been taken care of by the increase in sales tax,” Joffrion said.