reductions<\/a> to the Wildflower! Arts and Music Festival.<\/p>\nThe city\u2019s information technology fund will see an increase of over $1 million due to rising costs of software and services.<\/p>\n
The city will also see several larger expenses next year from the new library and City Hall, Magner said, including costs for the buildings\u2019 reopenings and for returning Santa\u2019s Village, the Public Safety Expo, and Dallas and Collin County voting locations to the library and City Hall campus.<\/p>\n
The general fund will see $8.7 million in new revenues and $12.63 million in new expenses. The largest new expenses include compensation adjustments for city employees, support for city insurance, public safety overtime due to staffing shortages, and IT software and equipment costs.<\/p>\n
Magner said reducing street rehabilitation in the general fund, cutting Wildflower! Festival costs and eliminating vacant city positions will balance the difference between the new revenues and expenses.<\/p>\n
A closer look<\/p>\n
The proposed budget includes $5.7 million in pay plan adjustments for all city employees.<\/p>\n
Richardson currently has a 9.6% vacancy rate citywide, a rate that, apart from a dip in 2024, has remained relatively level for the last five years. On average, the city is short of 95 full-time employees, Magner said, due to retention challenges, unexpected retirements and competition for hiring.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re running our operations and we\u2019re doing everything that our community expects, but we\u2019re doing it with about 100 less employees,\u201d Magner said.<\/p>\n
Staffing shortages are particularly impactful in public safety positions, Magner said, as the city has a 20% vacancy rate for police dispatchers and a 7.3% vacancy rate for police officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t sustainable,\u201d Magner said. \u201cWe have to make aggressive moves to fundamentally change how we\u2019re viewed in North Texas so that we can get this number down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Magner credits compensation as one of the primary reasons that Richardson is not able to be as competitive in the North Texas market for public safety hiring. Despite public safety compensation increases over the last several years, Richardson currently ranks 10th in police officer pay and ninth in firefighter pay out of 13 North Texas cities.<\/p>\n
In order to \u201cfundamentally and permanently\u201d shift Richardson\u2019s place in the rankings, and the city\u2019s ability to recruit employees, Magner recommended 5.5% merit-based pay increases for all sworn police and fire positions. The remaining civilian positions would be eligible for a 3.5% raise.<\/p>\n
Magner recommended a 3.5% merit-based pay adjustment for all general city employees and permanent part-time employees, as well as a living wage adjustment for hourly employees from $21 an hour to $22.31.<\/p>\n
Also of note<\/p>\n
The city has also lost close to $8 million in its insurance plan for city employees, which Magner credited to medical inflation and an increase in large claims. He proposed increasing the city\u2019s monthly insurance contributions while also increasing employee premiums by 7.5%.<\/p>\n
As a cost-cutting measure, Magner recommended permanently eliminating 19 full-time positions from the city. These positions, which include a deputy court clerk, fire management technician, building inspection manager and custodial supervisor, are all positions that have been frozen for several years.<\/p>\n
The city also plans to add five new positions under the general fund, including a custodial position at the new library and four fire positions as part of the department\u2019s plan to expand services.<\/p>\n
The approach<\/p>\n
Magner said he approached the budget with a multiyear view, aiming for \u201clong-term fiscal sustainability\u201d for the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of the factors that drive our revenues and our expenditures are very uncertain at this time, and yet many of the commitments that we have to make to the community, and that we make via these budgets, extend well beyond a single fiscal year,” Magner said.<\/p>\n
Inflation is increasing costs of fuel, contracts, utilities, equipment and compensation, Magner said, and construction cost increases are straining project budgets. Therefore, Magner said he planned for more conservative revenue forecasts than in past years.<\/p>\n
The general fund budget also includes over half a million dollars in contingency funding for potential fuel and utilities cost volatility. Magner said city departments have been working to identify operational efficiencies, including staffing changes and different ways to deliver services while maintaining a \u201chigh level of service.\u201d<\/p>\n
Current situation<\/p>\n
As fiscal year 2025-26 comes to a close, Magner said most revenue categories are meeting or exceeding projections.<\/p>\n
Because of an overperformance in sales tax revenue and expenditures, Magner said the city could end the fiscal year with about $12 million available in the general fund for one-time projects or initiatives. Magner laid out a plan for this extra fund, which includes transfers to the economic development fund, emergency response reserve, general debt service, and facility and parks maintenance funds, as well as funding for the city\u2019s unified development code project, capital projects and insurance for city employees.<\/p>\n
Magner said council will consider and approve final recommendations for these additional projects in November.<\/p>\n
A decline in water sales has led to a roughly $4.1 million shortfall in revenue in Richardson\u2019s water and sewer fund.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all know it\u2019s rained more and it\u2019s been a little cooler than in past years, and so I think that has impacted the use of water for irrigation,\u201d Magner said. \u201cIn addition, I think probably some people are recalibrating the way that they water because of the cost of water nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keep in mind<\/p>\n
Potential legislative action during the 2027 Texas Legislative session could also change how municipal financing works, Magner said. State officials have proposed reducing the annual homestead appraisal cap, requiring voter approval for all local property tax increases, limiting local government spending growth and moving from annual to five-year property appraisals.<\/p>\n
If any of these changes were to be approved by the Legislature, Magner said they would have a significant impact on city finances.<\/p>\n
Magner noted that Richardson is not alone in facing budget challenges, as cities across the state are entering the seventh year of a statewide cap<\/a> on property tax growth.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s the compounding effect that the cap has had year after year,\u201d Magner said. \u201cIt\u2019s not going to change without substantial movement at the state level.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s next<\/p>\n
Despite concerns about budget constraints, Mayor Amir Omar said he was happy with this budget year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got [a budget that] is allowing us to be able to be near the top in compensation in a lot of different categories, and I think it\u2019s a lot that we can be proud of,\u201d Omar said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got more revenue that we can work with this year, not as much as we\u2019d like, but hopefully we\u2019ll do an even better job next year based on all the great economic development work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Magner will file the final budget Aug. 14. Council called public hearings on the tax rate and budget for Sept. 14 and Sept. 21. Council will vote on adopting the budget and tax rate on Sept. 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richardson city staff are proposing a $406 million budget with no tax rate increase for fiscal year 2026-27.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2050,4519,1494,666,973,160,162,161,959,25538,45143],"class_list":["post-398715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-budget","tag-city-council","tag-construction","tag-funding","tag-infrastructure","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news","tag-richardson","tag-tax-rate","tag-water-rate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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