After budgeting for lower property values, Conroe received its certified property values earlier this month which will add $1.5 million in revenue for 2024.
The city is expected to adopt its $314 million budget Sept. 14 keeping its current tax rate of 42.72 cents per $100 valuation.
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City financial officials shared the more positive outlook for the upcoming year with council last week.
“We did see an increase from our preliminary numbers that we used in the budget to our certified numbers,” Assistant City Administrator and Director of Finance Collin Boothe said.
He said 46.6 percent of the added property value is new property in the city.
The city’s assessed property valuation increased to $14.3 billion which will be a gain of $1.5 million to the city’s general fund, Boothe said.
The city’s general fund is taxpayer-supported and funds several items including public services, public works and public safety.
Booth said the fund is budgeted at $124 million for 2024.
Other changes to the budget from the council budget workshop in July include funding the Montgomery County Veteran’s Memorial Park at $150,000 for 2024 and 2025 and moving the city’s arts and culture grants of $210,000 from the general fund to the hotel occupancy tax fund.
The budget, Boothe said, does include merit raises for employees but does not include a cost of living raise of funds for new employees.
Despite the bump in value, the city is still facing a “bare bones” budget for the upcoming year and into the future.
During a July budget workshop, the council agreed it needs to “right the ship” and create a more sustainable spending pattern.
“As we have come to see where we are today, it is not a pretty sight,” said Councilman Harry Hardman in July. “We are in an unsustainable rate of spending.”
During the council’s meeting Thursday, Hardman said one area the city needed to look at for the future is its growing payroll.
According to information from the city, the current payroll for the city’s 681 employees is about $78 million, including benefits. Hardman said that is $115,000 on average per employee.
“That is significantly higher than the average in Conroe,” Hardman said. “We have some very valuable employees, I’m not diminishing that.”
The U.S. Census Bureau shows the median household income for Conroe is $61,997.
Hardman said at the current rate, it’s unsustainable for the city to grow and add needed staff.
“We do need to be thoughtful about this, we all know we can’t keep just the number of people we have today, it’s unsustainable,” Hardman said. “We need to be thoughtful to our employees, but to be fair to the citizens.”
