Page 25 - CityofSouthlakeFY26AdoptedBudget

Figure 3

Economic Information Used for City Financial Projections

Economic Labor & Housing and Consumer
Commercial
Indicators Employment Growth Spending

Interest Rates Wages Building Permits Retail Sales
GDP Growth Unemployment Home Values Projections
Fuel Costs Healthcare Costs Top Taxpayer Meetings

By sustaining market-leading compensation, managing benefit costs responsibly, and expanding
meaningful non-compensatory benefits, the FY 2026 budget advances Southlake’s goal of being an
employer of choice while upholding the fiscal discipline that underpins the City’s long-term sustainability.

Goal: Multi-year Sustainability

Multi-year financial planning is another budget development consideration, one of the most important.
Executive leaders evaluate the operational impact of all identified projects and include those costs in
future budget projections. The Executive Leadership Team also works with the Chief Financial Officer to
develop a more formalized 5-year financial roadmap that reflects known and planned expenditures to
create further predictability for future budgets.

Staff monitors trends that depict the long-term financial health of the City and uses these trends to
make decisions to reach financial and service goals. Thoroughly understanding economic conditions is
critical for proper budgeting. Figure 3 shows the approach used to gather and analyze local economic
information for projecting revenues and evaluating multi-year budget sustainability.

The City has taken an additional formal step to understand and plan for the organization’s financial
future by adopting the Southlake Sustainability Plan as an element of the Southlake Comprehensive

Figure 4

Economic / Fiscal Wellness Priorities identified in the
Southlake Sustainability Plan

EFW1: Apply sound financial
policies to the City’s budget by EFW3: Fund and adopt
maintaining structural balance, EFW2: Apply debt annual City operating budget,
strong reserves, conservative management strategies to
budgeting, effective economic the City’s budgeting capital projects and equipment
analysis and understanding the through sound financial policies
true cost of doing business

FY 2026 City of Southlake | Budget Book 25