Photo via The City of Amarillo
Agendas for the Amarillo City Council meetings for September 6th and September 8th have been posted on the city’s website. According to the documents, the meetings will focus solely on the city’s budget and tax rate.
The relatively short agenda posted for the meeting on September 6th includes an invocation and public address, followed by a public hearing on the city’s budget. This is then to be followed by a first reading of ordinances adopting the budget and tax rate.
The similarly short agenda posted for the meeting on September 8th also includes an invocation and public address, with those then being followed by a public hearing on the tax rate. According to the agendas, “the tax rate will effectively be raised by 23.66 percent.” This will then be followed by the second and final readings of ordinances adopting the budget and tax rate. Finally, a procedural vote ratifying the budget and tax rate.
The public hearings for the budget and tax rate had previously been set for August 16th and 19th by the council during their meeting on August 2nd. However, since the proposed rate fell just short of the legal threshold requiring an election (which would have had to have been called by August 22nd), the city cancelled those hearings and rescheduled them.
This also came after Cole Stanley voted against the proposed rate, as it included servicing debt for the controversial civic center tax notes. The debt, which has not yet been officially issued, is still awaiting approval from the Texas Secretary of State. The tax notes are also being challenged in court and by a petition that was delivered to the city earlier this week. ““We are in a recession. I would prefer not to tax in advance,” said Stanley during the August 2nd meeting.
Not listed on either agenda is adoption of the city’s taxpayer funded lobbying priorities. This had been on the agenda for the August 16th meeting, but a vote on the measure was delayed due to the city’s failure to include a list of the priorities in agenda packets released to the public. It had been expected that that issue would have been taken up at this week’s meeting, but no meeting was held this week.
Both meetings next week will take place at 1:00 pm at City Hall. Click the buttons below to download the full agendas for each meeting: