Yesterday the city council of Corpus Christi made a decision, that was the right one, for the first time in a long time. They voted to lower the property tax to 57.2 from 58.2, giving the home owning citizens the sense that this council just might care about them. They also decided to keep all the budget cuts that they had spent months coming up with to balance a budget shortfall. The shortfall was caused by the Nueces County Appraisal District reporting that property values in Corpus Christi drop by 6.6%. This was actually an error and property values actually increased by 2%.
By lowering the property tax rate by one cent, the city will be giving the home owning citizens a break as well as generating the same tax revenue as last year. The time the city council and city staff spent finding areas in the budget to cut from to balance a error laden budget was time well spent. Even though the budget shortfall was not correct due to the error made by the county, the city found areas to trim unnecessary fat from our budget. That is always a good thing. Now the city also made cuts to programs that were not very popular by the public and even us here at Loose Topics. We here understand though in these economics times balancing any budget is not easy without making cuts to things people do not want to see cut, such as senior centers and public safety.
The cuts they did keep were laying off 66 city employees, closing and reducing hours and staff to senior centers,as well as making large budget cut to the public safety sector. They did decide to add some funding to animal control and code enforcement. We do not agree with adding funding to those programs but we do see a silver lining here. You see the city added funding to those two programs because they said the programs where under funded. Ok I can swallow that. But when the city finally realizes that other programs are under funded (like fire and police departments) we expect them to add funding to them as well. Just as a side note, both of those departments are under funded, its just the city has not open their eyes to it yet.
There was also 54,000 dollars that was suppose to go into the general fund that was voted on to be used on the Mental Health and Mental Retardation program. We are not sure why that money got allocated there but we are sure it was on someone's agenda.
The decision to lower the property tax rate and the keeping of all of the budget cuts was the best case outcome for the citizens of Corpus Christi. The city was going to make the budget cuts no matter what, error or no error. But the city could have left the property tax flat, which would have given the city an extra 800,000 dollars to spend. But by doing the city would have actually been raising the property tax without really saying so. The city could have also raised the property tax 6.6% like they had projected to do. This would have been the worse case outcome.
It is about time the city gives something back to its hard working tax paying citizens. We believe that this will also help build alittle more confidence in the city council by the public. This council has not always made the best decisions when it comes to giving the citizens some help. But for once we believe they were right.
Now this is not the end. There will be another budget next year and they are already expecting a shortfall. We will give the city council a small golf clap on this issue but they still need to continue to make good decisions like this one. They need to find a way to increase sales tax revenue by bringing in new businesses, find a way to increase our hotel tax revenue by bringing in resort style hotels, to find a way to fix and maintain our streets. They need to find a way to increase our funding to the public safety programs. The fire firefighters of this city, that put their lives at risk everyday, make well below the state average in pay. The fire department only has 9 ambulances for a city with a population of well over 300,000. Those things are not good for our city.
So even though the council and city staff are moving in the right directions and making better choices for us citizens, we the public need to keep voicing our opinions and letting them be heard. We create change here Loose Topics but we need the help of you and your opinion/voice.
What do you think? Please tell us and
Lonnie
CEO Loose Topics
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