Page 18 - Ord 866 Adopting a revised Fiscal Year 17-18 and new proposed Fiscal Year 18-19 budget

Section 1 Executive
Transmittal Letter

Some of our local challenges include:

Traffic Demands for Mobility both within Westlake and throughout the region – As our community
evolves staff will keep a close eye on partnerships and/ or opportunities that will help foster mobility
within the community without compromising the design standards and expectations of our
residents. East / West traffic continues to be an area of concern along with the ability of our
surrounding highway capacity for transient vehicles.

Population growth in both commercial and residential communities – since the inception of a
professional staff team in 2001, our daytime population has increased by an estimated 316%, while
our permanent ( nighttime) population has increased by 337%. Both of these factors cause an
increased drive for service delivery and impact the way our community develops. It is important
that we continue to monitor our growth trends and focus on delivering the high quality services our
residents expect.

Focus on both residential and commercial developments to comply with our design standards –
with the new commercial development of Charles Schwab and the progress being made in the
Entrada mixed- use development, staff will continue to work to ensure we are creating and
maintaining the relationships necessary to bring these projects to life as the Council has directed. In
the residential arena, we have The Knolls that we expect to break ground in the next fiscal year
and we will work with the developer on this project.

As we look to regional or state issues and opportunities, we will monitor these issues among others:

Pending ad valorem property tax cap proposed by the Governor – as presented, the proposal
would restrict the Council’ s ability to respond locally to the needs of our community. Staff will
continue to monitor any legislation put forward for consideration and advise both the community
and the Council as updates or changes occur.

Water usage and demand – our staff team will continue to work with the city of Southlake and the
Trophy Club MUD to address the new meter station challenges to bring this project to a close. We
will also be working on the Phase 2 waterline construction that will help secure our current and
future water needs for Westlake.

IV. Budget Preparation and Recommendations

With the presentation of the budget, staff is recommending an increase in the ad valorem
assessment from the effective rate of $0.13551 to $0.15600. The additional revenue generated,
should the Council approve the increase, would help balance our on-going expenditures with our
on-going revenue.

The proposed budget would fund our current levels of service without any significant expansion in
costs to the General Fund, which are not mandated by the state, required through contractual
obligations, or self-funded. Staff also performed an in-depth review of the budget to ensure that
we had identified all revenue streams and minimized the impact of commitments to the General
Fund. The table below indicates the majority of our categories are:

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