Page 20 - Southlake FY20 Budget

Transmittal Letter

The City has taken an additional formal step to understand and plan for the organization’s financial future
by adopting the Sustainability Master Plan as an element of Southlake 2030. The development of this
plan involved a deep dive into economic and financial trends that will influence the budget long term. It
contains formal recommendations to ensure desired positive outcomes. The Sustainability Master Plan is
included in the Appendix.

Service Delivery Excellence

The City of Southlake is committed to providing residents, businesses, and visitors with high quality, high
value public services.

Figure 5 is the City of Southlake’s organizational chart, showing the departments and reporting relationships.
Strategy execution is a fundamental part of the City’s operations. Department Directors regularly review
progress toward meeting performance targets, including assessments of key accountability indicators
(performance measures) and success in addressing Council-identified critical business outcomes.

Each department has its own Strategy Map built around the department’s core services and a performance
scorecard that includes performance measures and targets that drive business decisions (see Overview
of City Departments section for more information). Attention is also given to meeting performance
expectations in accordance with the City’s values: Integrity, Innovation, Accountability, Commitment to
Excellence, and Teamwork.

Financial Information and Fund Summaries

The City’s budget is comprised of specific “funds” to account for the revenue and expenditures that support
operations. Funds also account for debt incurred for capital improvements. Some funds are supported
by tax revenue, while others are supported by fees that have been put into place to cover the cost of the
service. Some funds are restricted for specific purposes, while others offer more spending flexibility.

This letter has been organized to describe each fund and to highlight key aspects of the budget for each.

General Fund

The General Fund is the City’s principle operating fund, and is supported by property tax, sales tax, fees, and
other revenues. These revenues may be used for a variety of purposes, as determined by the City Council.
The General Fund budget accounts for core City services such as police and fire protection, engineering,
planning, finance, and administrative oversight.

Tax rate. The FY 2020 proposed budget incorporates a tax rate of $0.41 per $100 valuation, reducing the
rate by 3.7 cents. The tax rate of $0.41 is split between General Fund operations and debt service. The
allocation for FY 2020 is $0.33 for general operations and $0.08 for debt service.

One penny of the tax rate reduction has been taken from the debt portion of the tax rate, reflecting the
City’s emphasis on cash funding General Fund capital projects.

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