Page 22 - Keller Budget FY21

Investment in the Workforce

The City of Keller knows that the key to our services and success is our employees. Our community
receives an average of two awards or honors monthly for municipal excellence, which is the direct result
of the hard work and dedication of staff.

Accordingly, the FY 2020‐21 Adopted Budget includes a sustainable 2% annual step plan that was
implemented in FY 2017‐18 for sworn and certified public safety employees. For general/civilian
employees, the budget proposes a 2% merit increase for eligible employees. Market adjustments have
also been included in the proposal and may be implemented in April 2021 based upon economic factors
such as preliminary property values and sales tax revenue. If implemented as budgeted, public safety
employees would receive market adjustments of up to 4% and civilian employees up to 2%. Because the
market adjustments would be implemented in April, they would have an impact of only 2% related to
public safety employees and 1% related to civilian employees on the FY 2021‐21 budget.

The adopted budget decreases city staff by 1.2 full‐time equivalents (FTEs) related to the Police
Operations division and the Animal Services and Adoption division. In the Police Operations division, one
police officer position will be reclassified to a police sergeant position, and the full‐time School Resource
Officer position in the General Fund will be moved to a less‐than‐full‐time SRO position in the Public Safety
Fund. The SRO change will decrease FTEs by 0.25 in total, but will have no impact to service levels or
interlocal funding.

As for the Animal Services and Adoption division, the City of Keller continues to partner with the Humane
Society of North Texas for the management of the Regional Animal Adoption Center serving the cities of
Keller, Southlake, Colleyville, Westlake, and now Roanoke. As a result of the new partnership with
Roanoke, the city will be adding an animal control officer funded in part by the regional contracts. During
FY 2019‐20, the city expanded the contract with HSNT to include animal control kennel operations,
removing three part‐time kennel technician FTEs (1.44) related to this service.

During FY 2019‐20, the Parks and Recreation Department also contracted out landscaping services. This
move led to a reduction in parks staff of three full‐time employees and a reduction in personnel
expenditures. With the changes, the total number of FTEs from the FY 2019‐20 budget to FY 2020‐21
Adopted Budget is a decrease of 1.21 FTEs. It should be noted that the number of employees working for
the city currently stands at 342.6 FTEs, far below the 369 on staff back in 2009 when our population was
smaller. I believe this shows the commitment by staff to operate as efficiently as possible.

On the benefits side of our compensation plan, the city will continue to offer a high deductible medical
insurance plan and has removed the optional buy‐up plan. The Human Resources Department was able
to negotiate a manageable 4.4% increase to health insurance costs for FY 2020‐21. Fiscal year 2019‐20
saw an increase to health insurance costs of 5%, and fiscal years 2018‐19 and 2017‐18 saw no increase to
health insurance costs. This means that health insurance costs have only increased the equivalent of 2.4%
annually over the past four years. In FY 2019‐20, General Fund salary savings of $ 1 million and Water‐
Wastewater Fund salary savings of $200,000 were transferred to a self‐insurance fund to advance the
city’s goal of becoming self‐insured in the near future.

As part of our benefits package, the City of Keller also participates in the Texas Municipal Retirement
System, which continues to be solidly funded at 85%. TMRS as a whole (as of Dec. 31, 2019) was 88%

20