Page 160 - Haltom City Budget FY21

CITY OF HALTOM CITY aNNUAL BUDGET, FY2021 SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION

MULTI-YEAR FINANCIAL OUTLOOK

General Fund

The Multi-year Financial Outlook for the General Fund is to continue to see increases in revenues
while budgeting expenses at an average of two percent increase while still building the overall fund
balance.

The long-term outlook in revenues is likely to be greater than projections, but just as with the
current budget, projections are developed by taking a conservative approach. Just the growth from
economic development should bring in the projected property and sales tax revenues. Even though
we saw the Tarrant County Appraisal District take a conservative approach to appraised values for
the FY2021 Budget Year, we feel the growth in values will align more to double digit value increases
that we have seen in the most recent years. Our sales tax base will also grow with new restaurants
and retail expected in the 820 Corridor. We also have new retail occurring throughout areas of
the city that were not on our sales tax base in prior years such as Ollie’s, and several new gas
station/restaurant type businesses. Since the city’s tax base is not solely reliant on retail, but has
a healthy industrial base, the City saw little decrease during the Covid-19 pandemic that caused
many neighboring cities to be forced to lay off staff. The City’s year-to-date sales tax numbers are
only a 1% decrease over last year, with the most recent month reporting a 6% increase in sales tax
dollars. Healthy revenues will determine the amount of expenses in future years.

Future expenditures will be focused on remaining competitive with surrounding cities for employee
compensation and benefits. As a long-term goal of the City Council, they wish to retain and attract
high-quality staff as the city continues to operate with a very modest number of employees. When
a city is forced to forfeit yearly salary adjustments, there is a tendency to fall further behind like
markets. It can be very costly to try to catch up in future years and often leads to the inability to ever
catch up. Since the city has experienced this in the past, it is still slightly behind neighboring cities
for several positions/salaries. Other expenses that will be considered when revenues allow are
to continue with the vehicle replacement program, the information technology replacement plan,
and additional decision packets for departments when the expense can generate efficiencies and
effectiveness. Another long-term goal is to address critical facility and infrastructure needs. The city
will continue to find ways to fund these items so that they have little to no effect on the citizens of
the community. Building the tax base is the most effective way of accomplishing this. Not only do
we strive to build the tax base, but we also want to build our reserve balances.

Building the reserve will only benefit the City in future years by preparing city staff to continue to
offer quality services and maintain staffing during economic down-turns. As unexpected as the
Covid-19 pandemic that caused a shut-down of many non-essential businesses during the 2020
fiscal year, having a healthy reserve balance will help weather a fiscal storm. The experience of this
quick-developing crisis caused city leadership to refocus on necessities for operations by halting all
unnecessary spending and will be better prepared should an economic crisis occur again.

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