On Monday, July 27, the City Commissioners held their last meeting for July, starting with public hearing regarding property located at 736 N. Christy, a substandard structure, to which Code Enforcement Officer Jeff Kennedy addressed the commission.
“That house there has been vacant for quite a few years, and going back and looking over it after it caught our radar again, and both houses were caught on fire next door to each other. One of them was boarded up, so they did everything they were supposed to do to put it back together and remodel it. But this one on the other hand is a little too far gone. The roof is collapsing in on many places. It’s not safe on the upper floor anywhere, and I don’t know how I didn’t fall through. We probably need to recommend condemning it and taking it down to make room for something else.”
With no further public comment, the hearing was closed, and the commissioners voted to issue a 30-day demolition order for the property.
Next was a budget discussion of the General Fund and Other Governmental Funds presented by Finance Director Theresa Daniels.
“For our increased sales tax, we’re budgeting about 3% of an increase for that. We haven’t really seen quite those numbers for this year, but we are on track for that and hope it’s going to increase. We have a sanitation fee increase of 10% across the board on the trash pick-up. Currently right now we have a 15% increase built in for the health insurance contribution, taking it from $957.62 per employee to $1,100. We are still waiting for the final numbers, and we’ve heard it’s possibly going to come in at about 7%. With that we could possibly reduce the insurance $165,000 to $150,000 with those numbers. Our non-certified values increased about $30 million from last year. We just got those numbers and we will wrap up the tax information with that and get that stuff sent out to you as soon as we can.”
“Once the budgets are completed by the departments and everything is turned in to our office around May, we start to combine everything together. Dustin, Shane and I have met two or three times a week for the past month going through budget, looking at every line-item, capital request, vehicle request, things of that sort, so the budget we are presenting to you will be our final budget we have reviewed. We will get that proposed and sent over to Barbara. In this process, we have done several budget runs to get you guys final numbers for this.”
“Our largest portion of the general revenue fund is going to come from charges of services which is our sanitation fees, and then we’ve got sales tax, property tax, and other taxes and so on. Overall, our general fund revenues are $19.7 million. For general fund expenditures, we’ve got our largest department in here which is our police department coming in right about 25% of the $19.6 million. We’ve got fire suppression which is almost 18%, and then behind that is our solid waste collection which is at 9.6%, and then streets and traffic at 8.1%. Again on solid waste collection, we increased that $150,000 this year for new dumpsters that will be covered through our dumpster replacement fund.”
“For personnel, you’ll see that we have 128 full-time employees and then we have seasonal and part-time employees. The biggest change in this is our buildings and grounds have increased by one full-time position for a maintenance worker.”
“In our five-year capital projects through 2026-2027 year and all the way to 2031, the total general fund request equals $36,527,286. These funds will come from operating capital vehicle replacements and any of our restricted funds we may use, these funds will cover us through that, but this is just a request as well that will be anticipated in the next five years for us to prepare for. There’s several things that some departments want through the general fund that we just have to continue to delay, but at some point those needs are going to become a necessity for us. For 26-27, we’re almost at $18 million, and then 2029-2030, we’re close to $14 million, so those are the two biggest years for requests. We’ve got $21 million requested in our water and wastewater fund, which is another large expense. CRMWA II is going to add into those fees as well, and then we’ve got the landfill at $5.1 million in requests coming up.”
“Our revenues are $19,687,291 and expenditures are $19,592,397, leaving us with an excess of $94,894. In this we have dumpster replacement funding of $150,000, leaving us with a surplus of $244,894.”
“When we look at the fund balance, it is the City’s goal to maintain at least a minimum of 20% of budgeted revenues for the fiscal year. This gives us about 75 days’ worth of expenditures, but we would prefer to be closer to 25%. Ideally we would love to have 50%, but 20% is the minimum requirement and anything less than that and we would have to start getting into other requirements to make sure we sustain that 20%. Currently with the projected budget that we have, we will be looking at a 20.74% fund balance. So we would change our estimated fund balance of $244,894 which is going to put us directly over that 20%.”
“For our general debt service accounts, we’ve got the 2017 refund, the 2020 CO, 2022 refund which was the animal service building, and our 2025 CO we just recently did, so our current debt payments for the general fund are $1.26 million for the upcoming year.”
Theresa reminded the commission that they would receive the proposed tax rates on or before August 7 from the County Office and those rates would be discussed on August 10.
With no further questions or comments, the commission moved on to the next items on the agenda, including approving the minutes of the July 13, 2026 regular commission meeting and consider excusing Commissioner Reed from that meeting; both were approved.
Next was to consider approving the list of disbursements dated June 2026, which were approved, but Commissioner Jimmy Keough did make a comment.
“A lot of rumors float around about our water rates going up and stuff, and I would like to just point out where CRMWA-this is a monthly charge to us at $72,854. That’s been going on since 2005, so it’s nothing new and CRMWA will continue to receive our water. I just want go on record that this is nothing new and it’s going to be here for a while. This is not from the data centers.”
“Our payments and obligation to CRMWA has been long standing and it will continue well into the future,” City Manager Shane Stokes said. “This is basically to pay for security of water for the citizens of Pampa.”
Next was to consider adopting on second and final reading Ordinance No. 1840, providing for a crosswalk at Pampa Regional Medical Center, which was approved.
Next was to consider adopting Resolution No. R26-007, reappointing Mac Smith to the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority for a two-year term beginning August 1, 2026, which was approved.
The commission then went into an executive session, and upon return with no further items on the agenda, the meeting was adjourned.
