Page 130 - Hurst FY19 Approved Budget

General Fund

The General Fund is the primary operating fund of the City. The General Fund is used to
account for all revenues and expenditures not accounted for in other designated funds.
It receives a greater variety and amount of revenues and finances a wider range of
governmental activities than any other fund. The General Fund is primarily supported
by the ad valorem tax, general sales tax, franchise taxes, licenses and permits fees, fines
and miscellaneous revenue sources. General Fund expenditures support the following
major functions: legislative and judicial services, administration, general services, human
resources, fiscal services, police, fire, public works and community services. All programs
which are justified, efficient and serve the needs of the community are adequately
funded. Service levels are increased substantially through indirect participation in the
General Fund by the Half-Cent Sales Tax Fund and the Anti-Crime Tax Fund. The major
consideration in budgeting revenues is the increase or decrease in property values,
which comprise the ad valorem tax base. For the 2018-2019 budget year, taxable
property values increased by 7.8%. Due to this increase in values, the city approved a
tax rate decrease of approximately 0.01 cents which is above the effective tax rate of
$0.552995 and below the rollback rate of $0.586350 per $100 valuation. The effective
tax rate represents the rate necessary to generate the same property tax revenue as in
the prior year. Please visit the Texas Comptroller’s website at www.comptroller.texas.
gov for more information on the effective tax rate and other topics associated with the
city’s collection of property taxes. Additional tax rate analysis is located in this section
of the budget. An activity schedule for each function is also included in this section.
Included for each operational area is a summary of expenditures, a personnel schedule,
mission statement, division description, prior year results and accomplishments, future
initiatives, goals, objectives, and performance measures. Line Item Detail and Capital
Outlay by Program are not provided in this budget document. The Budget Division or
Public Information Division will provide a 2018-2019 line item and capital outlay detail
budget upon request. The information can also be found on the City’s website at www.
hursttx.gov.

113