Your trusted source for community news
Property owners will still receive a 2.55-cent property tax reduction.
Halloween in the Park, facility hours and community garden operations were added back into the 2024-2025 fiscal budget, but the Citizens Collection Center did not make the cut.
Tammy Zimmerman, director of finance, fleet and facilities, at the Farmers Branch City Council meeting on Sept. 10, presented the council with slides from the special-called meeting Sept. 6. The correct calculations would be available in the council packets that council would receive that evening. They are currently available to the public on the Farmers Branch Legistar website for the Sept. 17 meeting, where council will approve the final budget for next year, which starts Oct. 1. (https://farmersbranch.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx)
“With the special-called meeting we had on Friday night, we calculated a new tax rate that includes the items city council wants added back in,” she said.
She reminded council and residents that the city is only about a quarter of the entire property tax bill property owners receive. Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District, Dallas County, Parkland Hospital and Dallas College receive the rest of the property taxes collected.
In addition, residents pay 27 percent of the property taxes collected in Farmers Branch. Businesses pay 73 percent. That ratio has shifted in the last few years so residents pay more of the city’s revenue.
However, Zimmerman pointed out that the council asked her staff to return some items to the budget at the request of residents.
“We added back Halloween in the Park. We added back some of the facility hours excluding Manske Library. We added back the Community Garden operations, and we have a new calculation, which will be .0255. Twenty cents off the 2.75-cent reduction we had originally budgeted,” she said.
Mayor Terry Lynne and the members of city council thanked Zimmerman and her staff for working hard and over the weekend to update numbers between the Friday evening and Tuesday evening meetings.
Lynne also thanked residents for attending the special-called meeting and speaking about topics that concerned them.
“I think council responded accordingly, which is great. Your voices were heard,” he said.
The council must approve the final budget at the Sept. 17 city council meeting. The new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
Editor’s Note: Although Halloween in the Park was added back in the budget, the city canceled it for this year, said Robert Diaz, director of parks and recreation, at the Sept. 6 special-called meeting, because there wasn't enough time for the city to plan it after the funding was restored.
