Page 156 - City of Westlake FY20 Budget

Section 3
General Fund Overview

Court Fines and Forfeitures; Budgeted to be $547K; a 0.01% decrease of $685 from prior year estimated.
Revenue generated from the Municipal Court is based on citations and warrants issued. The Keller Police
Department will continue to provide police services for Westlake.

Franchise Taxes: Budgeted to be $316K; a 62% decrease of $514K from prior year estimated. A reduction in
franchise fee revenue is estimated based on the recent passage of SB 1152 that authorizes a cable or phone
company to stop paying the lesser of its state cable franchise or telephone access line fees, whichever are less
for the company statewide. Companies have until October 1st of every year to provide municipalities notice of
which fee they were planning to pay. Fees are collected from utilities and telecommunications companies that
use Town right-of-way. A flat rate is charged to both telephone operators (adjusted annually) and Tri-County
Electric based on the number of access lines and services rendered, respectively.

Beverage Tax: Budgeted to remain flat at $62K. The Town collects a 14% gross receipt tax on mixed beverages.
Of this percentage, 10.7% of gross liquor receipts are remitted to the Town, and the remaining 3.3% is retained
by the State of Texas.

Miscellaneous Income: Budgeted to be $67K; a 35% decrease of $14K from prior year estimated. This
account type includes fees charged by the Town for facility rentals, sales of surplus/scrap items, insurance
refunds and equity returns. For FY2020, Facility department building rentals fees decreased $7K and the
Communications department donations decreased $5K.

Transfers In: Budgeted to be $67K; a 1% increase of $686 from prior year estimated. This account only
includes transfers in from the Utility fund for one-time impact fees. These fees are based on new home
construction starts

EXPENDITURES HIGHLIGHTS
The adopted FY2020 General Fund budget projects $11.2M in
expenditures and other uses. This reflects a 9% decrease of
$1.2M from the prior year estimated budget. The chart to the
right shows the distribution of General Fund expenditures and
other uses.

Payroll and Related Expenditures
The largest expenditure use in the adopted General Fund
budget is payroll and related. Personnel staffing levels for the
Town of Westlake are presented in full-time equivalents (FTE)
positions. For example, a position staffed for 40 hours per
week for 52 weeks per year (2,080 hours) equals one full-time equivalent position. For firefighter/paramedic
positions, an FTE is based on 2,912 hours per year, or an average of 56 hours per week is used. An FTE position of
.50 refers to a position that is funded for 1,040 hours per year (2,080 x .50). The personnel count includes vacant
positions.

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