Page 17 - City of Bedford FY21 Budget

Director, Assistant Director, Office Manager, and Administrative Assistant were assigned
to the new division. Finally, in Community Services, the personnel in the Senior Center
were moved to Recreation in preparation of the new facility.

 General Fund

General Fund Revenue - The budget provides funding for continuation of all current
programs and services. Revenue for FY 2020-2021 is budgeted at $38,138,243, an increase
of 1.13% over the FY 2019-2020 amended budget. A slight increase is budgeted for
franchise taxes, licenses and permits and miscellaneous revenue. Due to the closure of the
facilities at Generations Park, formerly known as the Boys Ranch, for construction, revenue
for charges for service has been scaled back. Additionally, decreases are budgeted for fine
revenue and interest income.

 Property taxes – Property taxes make up the largest single revenue source for General
Fund operations. The property tax rate is made up of two segments. The first is the
Operations and Maintenance (O&M) rate. This amount is dedicated to daily operations
of the City that fall within the General Fund. Services such as Police, Fire, Parks and
Recreation, Library, Senior Center, Neighborhood Services, Inspections, Finance, and
General Governmental functions are included in the General Fund. The second segment
of the tax rate is the Debt Service rate. This is the tax rate that is pledged to repay long
term debt obligations of the City. The property tax rate is calculated annually based on
property values as submitted to the City by the Tarrant Appraisal District. The property
tax rate is approved by the City Council after state and charter mandated public
hearings.

The tax rate adopted to fund the 2020-2021 budget is $0.569000, which is the same as
the adopted tax rate for 2019-2020. The number of properties eligible for tax ceilings
increased from 4,334 in 2019 to 4,390 in 2020.

Since 1995, the City of Bedford has collected an additional one-half of one percent in
sales tax for the reduction of property taxes. Sales tax collections vary from year to
year, which can have either a positive or negative impact on the operations and
maintenance tax rate. The sales tax adjustment rate decreased slightly from the 2019
rate of $0.074219 to the 2020 rate of $0.073683.

 Sales tax – Monthly collections vary significantly from historic trends and were further
impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic, making it difficult to forecast future collections.
Limited information is available from the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts that
would give staff the ability to identify patterns. As a result, staff estimates remain
conservative, due to the current economic outlook and the resulting volatility in sales
tax collections. The revenue amount budgeted is static for the coming year due to the
uncertainty of the Pandemic. Sales tax collections had been exceeding budget prior to
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