Page 33 - CityofSouthlakeFY27Budget

TABLE OF CONTENTS

This year’s budget puts that long view into practice through several structural steps whose benefits
extend well beyond FY 2027. The City is establishing a Public Safety Equipment Replacement Fund,
which converts the periodic, fluctuating cost of replacing police and fire equipment into a level annual
commitment and protects future operating budgets from cost spikes. It is also strengthening the
framework for its dedicated sales tax districts: new expenditure guidelines for the Southlake Parks
Development Corporation and the Community Enhancement and Development Corporation define
what each fund supports and set cost-sharing targets that will guide budgeting for years to come, Budget Overview
while a phased, long-term sustainability strategy for the Crime Control and Prevention District keeps
the School Resource Officer program and other public safety priorities sustainable as costs approach
available revenue. None of these steps was required to balance this year’s budget; each was taken to
strengthen the years that follow.

This budget was prepared with multi-year analysis as part of the development criteria, and the Multi-
Year Operating Plan section of this document provides further detail. By planning beyond the year at
hand, Southlake ensures that today’s decisions honor the discipline that built its strong financial position
and protect that position for the residents of tomorrow.

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

CONCLUSION

Taken together, the goals in this budget describe a single approach rather than five separate ones.
Southlake aligns its spending to strategy, holds to the financial principles that earned its standing,
manages the tax rate to keep faith with taxpayers, invests in the people who carry out the work, and
plans well beyond the year at hand. Each reinforces the others, and each reflects the same conviction:
that public resources are a trust to be managed with care.

That conviction is tested, not diminished, by the moment Southlake now faces. Revenue growth is
moderating as the City matures, and the work is turning from building anew to caring for what the
community has built. Meeting that moment does not call for a change in course. It calls for the discipline
that brought Southlake here to be applied with the same rigor to the years ahead, and this budget does
exactly that. It continues tax relief while carefully managing spending. And, it strengthens the funds and
guidelines that will steady future budgets long after this one closes.

FY 2027 City of Southlake | Budget Book 33