HUTTO – Mayor Mike Snyder and a councilman who often spar about taxes and budgets reached a truce over potentially setting a tax rate higher than the no-newrevenue rate. The issue at the July 10 council session involved directing the city manager to propose a budget compatible with an NNR tax rate, with a draft available to officials and on the city website by July 31.
The measure passed 6-1 with Councilman Brian Thompson dissenting.
City budgets have to be in place by Oct. 1.
Councilman Peter Gordon, who often takes issue with Snyder’s views, symbolically walked through the issue but voted in favor of it.
While Gordon often supports an NNR tax rate, he prefers to start the budget process without that limit. Snyder prefers to limit the budget from the beginning to those items he considers “needs, not wants.”
“In my opinion if you write a budget giving everything you can away and then it’s up to council to claw everything back, we’re the bad guys,” Snyder said.
He said he prefers to have a streamlined version and then be able to add in other options once he knows how much money is already being spent and how much is left without exceeding NNR.
Gordon and Thompson prefer to see a budget containing all of the city manager’s recommendations, then trim items out to arrive at a reasonable tax rate.
“Fundamentally, I just have a problem limiting what the city manager is going to be able to present to us,” Gordon said. “I would rather it fall upon us as a council to decide how we’re going to lower it rather than putting that on the city manager.”
Snyder indicated if a budget did not contain excessive additions, he would consider it even if taxes inched a little above the NNR rate.
“I won’t go the highest. I will vote to set the ‘not to exceed’ rate above NNR knowing we have a lot of discussion but also knowing there’s a 99% chance I will not go above NNR,” Snyder said.
“If you say that, I’m going to vote ‘yes’ tonight. Deal?” Gordon responded.
City employee morale improves
Results of an annual Gallup poll sanctioned by the city are in stark contrast to a nationwide trend of government employees feeling less engaged in their jobs every year, officials said at the council meeting.
Forty-four percent of Hutto city employees indicated they are engaged with their jobs, an increase of eight points from a previous survey.
Engagement measures the involvement and enthusiasm of staffers in their work and workplace.
“I believe it’s a shared responsibility between council and staff,” said David Amsler, director of strategic operations for Hutto.
Hutto’s strategic plan includes an employee engagement program, which the city launched last year in partnership with Gallup. The recent poll marked the end of a year in which the city emphasized employee retention, motivation and satisfaction.
