City gets update on crime stats
HUTTO — The municipal budget, crime and a 150th birthday party rounded out a recent City Council meeting that included approving a tax rate promising lower bills for some property owners.
The council passed a Fiscal Year 2025-26 budget of nearly $35 million and a no-newrevenue property tax rate of 38.5928 cents per $100 of taxable property valuation.
Officials said taxes should be slightly lower on most homes under the rate.
The budget, which locks into place Oct. 1, is projected to collect $34,763,404 from all revenue sources and spend $34,763,404, making it a zero-sum budget.
“We stopped going down the path of just more and more and we’re sticking to our core basics,” said Mayor Mike Snyder at the Sept. 4 session. “We won’t be the city with the best park. That will be Round Rock with its $200 million park. Hutto doesn’t need to go broke trying to compete with the guy next door.”
The tax will raise $22.1 million, which is $1.5 million more than last year, with all but about $55,000 coming from new properties added to the tax rolls in 2025.
According to planners, 25.67 cents goes into the general fund for maintenance and operation, while about 13.31 cents helps pay off debts, or the interest and sinking fund.
The budget includes more money for road maintenance, sidewalks and drainage improvements, officials said.
It also adds a crisisprevention officer and a technology specialist to the Hutto Police Department. The budget also has room to explore setting up a city transportation program to help older residents and others lacking vehicles.
The budget was approved on a 5-2 vote with councilmen Peter Gordon and Brian Thompson dissenting.
“I think we cut a lot of needs, not just wants,” Gordon said.
Crime snapshot
A summary of July 2025 crime statistics over the same month last year shows an increase in burglaries, criminal mischief, possession of drug paraphernalia and drug offenses and drivingwhile- intoxicated incidents, Police Chief Jeff Yarbrough told the council.
However, officers reported drops in public intoxication, theft, sexual assault and Child Protective Services referrals, the chief added.
Car break-ins, which had been on the rise, have significantly decreased, Yarbrough added, with zero cases reported in July and only six cases so far this year, while there were 12 cases in July 2024 alone.
Yarbrough said police are responding to more calls involving people with suicidal or homicidal intentions.
He played a drone video for the council from an Aug. 13 incident in which an armed man barricaded himself inside a residence.
The department’s special-response team called upon the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office Special Weapons and Tactics team, which used an armored vehicle to shield officers as they approached the house.
When officers entered the home, the man was already dead.
“With increased population, there is going to be an increase in a variety of things including the nature of crimes we see,” Yarbrough said.
The chief, noting the force has 51 officers and no vacancies, said by year’s end all sworn personnel should be trained in mental health and crisis intervention.
“Sometimes you have behaviors of (a) person in crisis whose behaviors can mimic criminality and we want our officers to be trained to the point where they know the difference,” Yarbrough said.
The department received 620 animal control calls and handled 687 code enforcement notifications this July, Yarbrough added.
Hutto’s 150th birthday will be lit up
The city’s 150th anniversary in 2026 now includes fireworks.
“American Rhapsody: Hutto 4th of July celebration” was canceled due to extreme weather during the Independence Day weekend.
An unused credit of $20,250 from that event will now fund fireworks for the 2026 sesquicentennial celebration, council members said.
No date is set yet for the big bash, but an advisory committee is expected to start planning soon.
