ADOPTED TRANSMITTAL LETTER

Lake Jackson Texas

Honorable Mayor and City Council,

I am pleased to present to you the adopted fiscal year 2021-2022 annual budget. This budget represents over six months of effort by our City Council and City Staff. This transmittal letter discusses changes made to the proposed budget submitted to City Council on July 6, 2021.

FY 2021-2022 Budget Changes Since the budget was presented to City Council at their July 6th meeting, several changes have been made to the proposed budget. We received our final appraisal values from Brazoria County Appraisal District on July 22, 2021. The final appraised values are $2,582,529,655, or $59,712,534 more than the final FY 2020-21 appraised value of $2,522,817,121.

However, our initial budget estimate for appraised values based on BCAD preliminary data received in May, was $2,605,805,122, or $82,988,001 more than the FY2020-2021 values.

The City Council considered a request for a new part-time position to assist with prosecution municipal court cases and approved to set the tax rate at just below the Voter Approval Rate to bring in additional dollars for street repairs. The Council also agreed to add an expense to the Special Events Fund.

Part-Time Prosecutor

The City Council agreed to fund a part-time prosecutor to assist with trials and prosecution of cases. The added cost to the budget for the part-time position is $43,200.

Street Repair

In 2019, the City chose to reduce the $100,000 street panel replacement program for one year to help fund the increase stipend to the Southern Brazoria County Animal Shelter to run the animal shelter. Since that time, the nation was struck with the COVID 19 outbreak which had a dire affect on city revenues. This of course delayed replenishing the funds once set aside for panel replacements in the operating budget. Maintenance of streets and replenishing the Street Department maintenance budget was the biggest issue discussed during the budget session. City Council ultimately decided to increase the tax rate to $0.339 cents to add $46,600 to the street maintenance budget.

Special Events

The City Council agreed to increase expenditures to sponsor the placement of US Flags during special holidays throughout the city. The sponsorship will result in an annual cost of $3,500 to the special events fund.