The Amarillo City Council spent its third budget workshop Friday weighing a long list of department needs against a more immediate question: how much of those needs can be funded while still lowering the property tax rate.

City staff returned to the council with revised recommendations based on direction given during Thursday’s workshop, including a plan for allocating about $7.2 million available for recurring expenses. Council members also heard requests involving emergency communications, parks, municipal court and several one-time capital projects.

By the end of the workshop, staff had another assignment: determine what a roughly $1 million reduction to the proposed budget would mean for those priorities and the tax rate.

Emergency communications seeks more staff

Max Dunlap, director of the Office of Emergency Management, told the council that staffing at the Amarillo Emergency Communications Center has grown, but so has its workload.

The center has 64 employees, including around 50 specialists who handle calls, and dealt with approximately 1.1 million radio transactions over the course of a year. About one-third of its calls are non-emergencies.

Dunlap said the workload has strained the department, which needs additional specialists and supervisors. The center averages roughly $900,000 annually in overtime costs — an amount equivalent to the salaries of about 23 full-time employees.

AECC ultimately needs another 27 full-time employees, Dunlap said, although that request was not included on the department’s budget request sheet.

Deputy City Manager Andrew Freeman said the full staffing requests from public safety departments were left off because meeting all of them would likely require enough additional funding to necessitate a bond election.

Public safety departments also are not currently fully staffed, making it difficult to determine what their normal operating expenses would look like at full strength. The City has been overhiring this year in an effort to reach its staffing targets.

The Office of Emergency Management has eight full-time employees and needs another six and a half, according to Dunlap.

OEM is also requesting $50,000 for an outdoor warning siren system and $70,000 for special-event equipment and planning software. Dunlap said OEM and AECC are exploring additional revenue sources, including siren services and contracts with other entities.

Parks focuses on maintenance and aging facilities

Parks and Recreation Director Michael Kashuba said Amarillo has made significant investments in its parks over the past five years. This year, the department is turning more attention toward maintenance, signage, beautification and aging facilities.

Among the needs is replastering the pool at the Warford Activity Center, which saw 4,600 users in June alone.

The department also wants to install a centralized irrigation control system. Currently, employees must manually inspect individual park irrigation systems. A centralized system would allow staff to monitor them from one location, turn systems on or off and make adjustments based on weather conditions.

Restrooms are another concern.

Restrooms at school parks have been closed and are slated for removal, with any replacements left to the school districts. City-owned park restrooms generally remain open unless plumbing or sewer problems force their closure, but many are in poor condition and need replacement.

Other long-term parks priorities include restoring or replacing playgrounds, reseeding bare areas where weeds became overgrown during the COVID-19 pandemic and eventually purchasing artificial turf for athletic fields.

Municipal court may return to outside collections

Amarillo Municipal Court could also return to using an outside collection agency for outstanding warrants and debts.

Court Services Director Donna Knight said the City stopped using a collection agency in 2014 after problems that included notices being sent to the wrong people.

Collection agencies also charge fees that increase the amount residents owe. Since then, the Municipal Court has handled collections internally.

Information presented by Knight indicated Amarillo is performing about as well as comparable municipalities, but collections consume staff time and resources.

City Manager Grayson Path said the City plans to search for a collection agency while closely vetting its practices and looking for a community-focused company. Council members supported exploring the change.

Staff proposes raises as council considers another $1 million reduction

One of the workshop’s central discussions involved how to spend approximately $7.2 million available for recurring requests.

Based on council feedback from Thursday, Freeman said staff believes the City can provide civilian employees with a 2% cost-of-living adjustment and set aside funding for 1% merit raises. The proposal would also implement portions of a civilian employee pay study and provide police officers and firefighters with 3% raises.

Staff’s recommendations also include $100,000 for police and fire overtime, several additional employees and various supplies and software.

Councilmember Les Simpson, Place Four, revisited the possibility of adopting the no-new-revenue tax rate and reducing the proposed budget by another $1 million to help further lower the tax rate.

Freeman said employee raises could remain possible under that scenario, but some other requests would likely have to be removed.

Path noted that the City accounts for roughly 22% of a resident’s overall property tax bill. While not every resident uses a local school district or college, he said everyone in Amarillo relies on City services.

Residents have also asked the City for improvements such as faster response times and better park irrigation, Path said, and additional property tax revenue is one way to pay for those services.

Mayor Cole Stanley said he was not opposed to finding $1 million in total reductions and asked staff to explore whether administrative costs could be reallocated or transfers adjusted to rebalance the budget.

Freeman said staff would revisit the numbers and request rankings and return with additional options.

One-time projects stretch across City departments

Staff also presented recommendations for one-time community improvement projects.

Freeman said department heads identified recurring expenses that could instead be handled as one-time purchases, including equipment that could be bought outright rather than leased.

Proposed projects include design work for another fire station and a fire training facility, traffic signal and other traffic administration equipment, court reporter software and several pieces of heavy machinery.

The list also includes continued renovations to kennels at the Animal Management and Welfare shelter and design work for renovating or expanding the municipal court and police building.

Separate enterprise funds have millions more set aside for projects.

The water and sewer fund has $13 million earmarked for capital improvement projects that will be brought to the council for approval throughout the year, while drainage has funding set aside for a new street sweeper.

Solid waste has approximately $3 million available to continue replacing residential dumpsters, obtain engineering services at the landfill and develop solid waste “convenience centers” to replace public receptacles currently located at Amarillo libraries.

The Civic Center has about $1.9 million available.

Interim General Manager Christopher Post said the Civic Center is not intended to make a profit and routinely operates at a loss while providing community services. Staff is exploring advertising revenue and other ways to recover some costs.

Planned projects include asphalt and chair replacement, repairs to the ice plant and a new sound system and seating upgrades at the coliseum.

The airport fund has another $5.7 million to allocate. Projects remain under review but could include a noise study, carpet replacement and purchases of heavy equipment.

Debt begins rolling off, but most remains for another decade

The City currently carries approximately $566.8 million in total debt.

About $4.9 million of that debt matures this year, which is expected to lower the 2027 tax rate by roughly 3 cents. Another $2 million will roll off over the following few years and affect the 2030 rate.

After that, no additional City debt is scheduled to mature until 2037.

City staff is working with financial advisers to determine how proposed new debt would affect the 2027 tax rate and plans to bring those calculations back to the council.

The council also laid out a preliminary timeline for completing the budget process ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline to formally adopt a budget and tax rate.

Budget and tax-rate discussions will continue during the council’s regular Aug. 25 meeting. The council is scheduled to vote on the budget and establish a not-to-exceed tax rate Sept. 8. That rate could still be lowered later.

A public hearing and first reading of the proposed tax rate are scheduled for Sept. 22, with a final vote on adoption planned for Sept. 29.