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6 In its shortest meeting in recent history, the Rollingwood City Council approved its budget, tax rate and November election.
At the final, specially called, budget workshop last week, City Council members approved the Rollingwood Community Development Corporation Budget and appointed two members to the vacant slots on its board. None of the numbers on the RCDC budget changed from the second incarnation rejected by council, but the latest version more clearly delineates which projects have been approved and which still need a public review.
“The council was more comfortable approving it with that language in place,” City Administrator Vicky Rudy said after the Wednesday meeting.
At that meeting, council members also voted unanimously to appoint Brian Rider and Bill Hamilton to the RCDC board and named Roxanne McKee the council liaison to the RCDC board.
The only previously approved projects in the RCDC budget are the walking trail and the Endeavor water line, totaling $51,000. Projects pending further public hearing and council approval, including the Edgegrove water line and the ADA restrooms, total more than $400,000.
At Monday’s meeting that took less than an hour, all the details had been decided, and it became a matter of making it official.
“If we’re voting for this, are we voting to say that this is a legitimate budget?” Alderman Brian Nalle asked before the budget vote. “If I believe we could have done better, do I vote against it, or do I vote for it because it’s an acceptable budget?”
Mayor Dale Dingley replied, “By voting yes, you’re saying you accept the budget not making a comment on the quality.”
Hamilton defended the budget, saying that it was fiscally conservative and a sign of the economic times. But that it was also a work in progress in regards to blending in the RCDC budget and low expectations but high hopes for sales tax.
While the budget was approved unanimously, the tax rate faced the now familiar 3-2 vote of Bill Hamilton, Shanthi Jayakumar and John Hinton over Brian Nalle and Roxanne McKee.
The vote went in favor of the effective tax rate, 11.16 cents per $100 valuation, which is nearly half a cent lower than the current rate of 11.59 cents. The most the city could have levied without an election was 12.05 cents per $100 valuation, which would have worked out to about $45 more per year for a $500,000 home.
“People argue the property tax both ways, it’s not that much,” Hamilton said, arguing that the city should find a way to get additional revenue from sales tax. “I tend to say if it’s anything, we have a fiduciary responsibility to reflect what the economic times are.”
While Roxanne McKee agreed that the city needed to help foster its sales tax base, the money needed to come from somewhere.
“We have a major water project improvement and streets that need to be repaired, and those need to be funded,” she said. “These are major infrastructure projects that are going to cost a lot of money so it seems to me even though it’s a small amount the money has to come from somewhere to fix our water system and get our streets repaved in a reasonable amount of time.”
Council members did not broach the only other looming question in the budget, the amount the council is willing to pay for a new city administrator.
Dingley said he expected those questions to come up in the next regularly scheduled meeting Oct. 22.
I have several concerns with this article. First, this is not the first time Ms. Himares has shown an obvious angle or not so subtle bias to her rporting, rather than simply reporting the facts of a council meeting. Articles written before this last election that were never antagonistic towards the nature of votes by our council members. Please report information in an even handed manner.
Second, alderwoman McKee felt that the property tax rate needed to be raised to the highest possible amount because she states “money has to come from somewhere for infrastructure needs”. Ms. McKee seems unaware that Rollingwood property values were increased by record twenty percent by the Travis County Appraisal District this year alone! Why is this huge windfall for Rollingwood not being taken into account? Why are the citizens expected to pay a higher tax rate on top of this increase in their property taxes? Ms. McKee seems out of touch and completely insensitive to the burdens being handed to the property owners in Rollingwood. The article states that the highest tax rate means a relatively small amount in increased taxes. What is not mentioned (conveniently) is the overall burden from the increased valuations. Where is this money going? In addition, Alderwoman McKee and Alderman Nalle feel that NOT increasing our tax burden is irresponsible. Both Nalle and McKee did not feel any tinge of irresponsibility with the spending that went on over the last few years. McKee argued against the citizens’ petition in a court during testimony supporting the ridiculous parking lot. Nalle voted for all the spending while on council. Now McKee and Nalle say the council is being irresponsible? They both say the city now needs the money. The city should have plenty without passing on the burden of their poorly thought out actions to the citizens. Surely others see the extreme irony in this behavior. I voted for McKee thinking she was going to represent those who want smart planning. I think she misrepresented herself and her voting pattern so far has been disappointing.
Is this supposed to mean shame on those three for daring to vote against those two so our city government’s spending would be carefully handled? Did I miss something?
Brian Nalle is like a child throwing a temper tantrum because his allowance was taken away for bad behavior. He needs to stop facilitating the unpleasantness of city meetings (which makes them long) and grow up to be a big boy. Roxanne McKee needs to understand what the people of Rollingwood have asked for and not create a false issue of others supposedly lacking the willingness to take care of infrastructure. The reality is that issue was raised long before the last election when infrastructure was ignored by the previous council. Now things have changed for the better. The new majority on council is making it happen and is not forcing unnecessary expenses on the taxpayers. Thank you Rollingwood council for supporting the citizens who just can’t afford a repeat of our 2008/09 Spendathon!
Picreader, you wrongly state that, “McKee argued against the citizens’ petition in a court during testimony supporting the ridiculous parking lot.” I never attended a court hearing on the parking lot, nor gave any testimony on the matter. You must have me confused with someone else.
I’m not too familiar with the court details but I seem to recall that Ms. McKee was very vocal in her support of wasting $400,000 of taxpayer money on the parking lot in the park. I thought she was at the courthouse to support those arguing against the citizens and she at least helped the city maneuver against the will of the citizens and disobey the court order for an election on the issue.
I do know that she recently said the city does not have enough money and so she wanted a bigger chunk of money from us to keep up the spending at city hall. I think something is very wrong with this lack of reasoning.
Mrs. MCkee was vocal in support of spending the approved amount of 250k on the parking lot project. The increased amount was supported by those who sued the City of Rollingwood.
Now wait just a second. Fact check:
Those who sued had no choice but to do so in order for their voices to eventually be heard. The city officials had ignored their valid petition! They hired an attorney because of what the city did. The mayor and his cohorts fought against the citizens, not vice versa. It was the city officials who forced this vast expenditure upon the taxpayers by their special interest focus, not the people. It is the PEOPLE whom these folks are supposed to work for, not themselves or their special agendas.
The attorneys charged the people too much to fight the people is what this amounts to. Don’t blame the people on that one. Blame those who make the choices at city hall and do the hiring of the attorneys who charge those fees.
Roxanne McKee makes the hilarious comment now saying we don’t have any money when a year ago she wanted to spend it frivolously. Fact.