On Monday, June 23, the city commissioners held their bi-monthly meeting, starting with discussion of the 2025-2026 Budget presented by Finance Director Theresa Daniels.
“The first round of meetings allow the department heads to request and explain their needs including personnel and capital,” City Manager Shane Stokes said. “The following round of meetings are a little more realistic and often discouraging for department heads because you start to get what we can and can’t do. It’s a matter of needs versus resources. We don’t restrict what they ask for in the beginning because that’s the only way to know what they really need, but then you start looking at realism and what resources and funding is available to support that budget and you have to start trimming it down. Historically Pampa has been guilty of setting a budget to match a tax rate when you’re really supposed to set your tax rate to support your budget. Unfortunately with legislation changes and restrictions of that taxing window, it is becoming more and more popular now to set a budget to your tax rate because your tax rate is going to be what it is unless you want to go to an election.”
“The budget will go through a major change from that initial form until its final form that will be submitted to the City Secretary’s office. We are starting a little earlier with you guys this year so you can see that process from A to Z instead of usually you come in about L, M, N or O and get to finish out to Z. So we’re going to be sure and try to expose you to all of it and be able to get guidance and input from you for that.”
“Right now we are on June 23 just for the budget discussion,” Theresa said. “On the July 14th meeting, we will talk about enterprise funds and then the July 25th meeting we be moved to August 4th when we will have a budget discussion work session before the meeting and then discuss the general fund.”
“You’ll see that August 15 is the date where we will file the proposed budget with the City Secretary, so it seems like we are starting early, but as we get closer, things really start getting tight and start happening daily. Numbers are changing, rates are changing, so we’re working around the clock to get everything ready.”
“One of the reasons it’s really compressed is because our charter requires two readings on the ordinances and regulations on budgets,” Shane added. “So where a lot of cities can handle two or three things in one meeting, we can only handle half of it and have another meeting to vote on it. So that really compresses our schedule and timeline and that’s why we impress on you guys if you’re going to be gone at any time, we need to know because we have to meet those deadlines.”
“When I say a fund, it’s a self-balancing set of accounts,” Theresa said. “You’ve got revenues and expenses, so everything within that fund balances itself. So when I say general fund or MK Brown, those are two separate different funds. The City of Pampa has 22 total funds. Then you get into the different fund categories which are governmental funds and proprietary funds. Governmental are the ones you are going to look at that you hear us talk about with the general fund. Those are just functions and activities that the city provides to the citizens that are supported by taxes and grants and different types of revenue sources that may be coming in. The governmental funds are some of our larger departments. They house our streets, our police, our fire department, our sanitation-they are our larger departments and more costly departments, but they are government supported. The main thing to take away from this is they are the main ones that are supported by taxes.”
“The proprietary funds are also what we call enterprise funds, and they are business-type funds. You would treat that as a fund that is going to support itself and is going to typically charge for the services they are providing to the citizens as a business would.”
“There are exceptions there and fees should cover the cost of providing those services, but that’s not always the case,” Shane added. “A good example is the water park. The only way could have fees that cover the cost would make it unaffordable for the majority of the people who use it. So therefore it is a quality of life issue-you want the water park, you want the parks, you want the golf course, but if they don’t pay for themselves, that’s when you see the subsidies from the general fund.”
“Governmental funds are our general fund, debt service fund, special revenue funds, capital project funds, and the proprietary funds are our water and waste management, landfill, and our treatment facilities,” Theresa continued.
“The revenue sources for our general fund are property tax that is about 22% of what the general collects, sales tax 25%, franchise fees and taxes 8%, and the charges for services are 29%. That’s going to be for trash collection and rentals of our buildings, things of that sort.”
“We also have the debt service that is strictly for property tax and the special revenue funds are hotel/motel tax which is the MK Brown fund, and the property tax for the library. In the hotel/motel property tax, 15% goes to the Chamber up to $75,000 per year.”
“There was a .03 cent tax on the property for library support,” Shane said. “That doesn’t come close to supporting it or covering the costs. We do get a $3,000 annual stipend from the county for the library use. Again that budget is a quarter of a million dollars. So no, it doesn’t pay for itself, but it is one of those things if you’re going to have a library or not, it’s quality of life.”
“The proprietary funds are the enterprise funds and you have your water, wastewater, landfill, waterpark, golf course, and our leased properties,” Theresa continued. “These main revenue sources are what they are, they are charges for services provided. Those fees are charged to our customers for the services we provide.”
“There are restrictions on all funds that we have. The only activities that can be paid for by the general fund are the departments within that. Then you have the proprietary and special revenue funds and these funds can provide revenues for administrative, debt, and capital costs. You’ll see a lot of administrative costs and things within different propietary funds because there are so many personnel positions that are outside of those funds.”
“That’s always the biggest question: what is that administrative cost, administrative fee? The proprietary funds have that in there to help offset the cost of what finance does for them, what administration does for them, what their director does for them out of the general fund. So we recoup a little bit of that cost from that fund for those operations,” Shane added.
“Then you have your debt and capital funds. These revenues and sources can fund debt and project costs and no operating costs,” Theresa continued. “So when we issue a bond or any type of debt issuance, those funds have to handle that debt issuance, not operating. For judiciary, we don’t have many of them. They contain municipal bonds and the dental fund for our employees.”
“We have had a lot of additional personnel requests discussed during our departmental meetings. We have done a personnel analysis which is something we do each year to look to see where our salaries are compared to other cities. This year, I did an in-depth personnel analysis going through at least 10 different cities our size in our area. I took out the highest paid and lowest paid employees within those cities and our analysis identified a few positions that are behind. If you can guess, police and fire are our two biggest ones that are in that category. So in order for us to do a personnel analysis that we’ve calculated, adding that to our general fund would jump our budget up to $19.7 million.”
“That also includes additional positions, such as requests for new employees that we will discuss as we go through the process,” Shane said.
“Overall the departments have requested $34 million for the upcoming budget year with capital,” Theresa said.
“Keep in mind that’s the first one before they start getting discouraged, that’s the wish list if you will,” Shane said.
“The personnel requests include Finance and HR where I’ve requested another HR personnel position and the $86,000 is a full personnel compensation total-retirement, health insurance. Police have requested an additional sargeant and patrol officer, streets has requested three seasonal part-timers, parks has requested three equipment operators, buildings and grounds has requested one maintenance tech, fire has requested three firefighters, animal control is looking for a part-time administrator and dispatch is looking for two new dispatchers. So the total for these requests would add an additional $1.3 million to the general fund.”
Next on the agenda was to approve the minutes of the June 10 meeting, which was approved.
Next item was to consider approving the list of disbursements dated May 2025 presented by Theresa, which was approved.
Next was to consider adopting on the second and final reading Resolution No. R25-017 approving an Economic Development Agreement between the Economic Development Corporation agreement between the PEDC and Ten 41 Uniforms and Tactical, which was approved.
Next was to consider awarding the bid for the Water Utility Generator Project to Niccum Electric, which was approved.
Next was to consider awarding the bid for the Mowing and Maintenance of Select City Parks Project to Sandburr Irrigation and Landscaping, which was approved.
“Because our parks department has a lot to mow outside of everything else plus keeping care of certain properties that need additional mowing, we voted a while back to have some help with our smaller properties. Most of these are a little less than a half acre, but there are a couple of larger ones they added, such as the Memorial Park and Freedom Museum and the waterpark,” said Luke.
“That was part of the reason we decided to bid the municipals out about 18 years ago for that reason,” Shane said. “Our parks department was trying to take care of all these and the other 34 parks around town. A lot of times the ones getting neglected were the municipal ones that are most visible in the downtown area. So we looked at it and researched it and this is a really good deal and what we get out of it because they’re always taken care of for us and our guys are taking care of delinquent properties and parks.”
Next was to consider adopting Resolution No. R25-018, appointing Taylor Kennedy to a two-year term on the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority (CRMWA) Board of Directors, which was approved.
“Our current board members are Mac Smith and Jerry Carlson,” said Public Works Director, Gary Turley. “Jerry is getting to the age where he wants to retire, and we appreciate Jerry. He’s been on the board for 47 and a half years and has served the City of Pampa well over those years. Taylor has recently moved back to Pampa. His parents are Worley and Nina Kennedy. You may know his grandpa, he was a former judge, so he’s homegrown. His engineering degree is in water and has worked in the water industry all over Texas, so he brings a lot of knowledge to the board as well. He’s looking forward to carrying onward when Jerry steps down July 31, so he will start August 1.”
Next was to consider authorizing the City Manager to enter into an Interlocal Agreement between the City of Pampa and eleven other participating entities for the use of SPEX Forensics Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), which was approved.
The commission then went into an Executive Session, and once they returned with no other further discussion, the meeting was adjourned.
