The City seems to be very proud of themselves that they have a “solid” budget with a $250,000 ‘surplus’. Don’t forget, however, that the Feds literally dropped almost $2 million in their laps for “Covid” and that, thanks to inflation (especially gas prices, of which a LOT is sold within the City) sales tax receipts ballooned and handed them another couple hundred thousand bucks they didn’t expect.
[Fun fact: in 2017, gasoline sales accounted for $26.3 MILLION dollars in Lampasas (see page 37)- they are very likely double that now]
I wouldn’t expect any of those gifts to repeat next year, but they are already salivating on blowing that $250k on raises for everyone with a pulse.
One place they DIDN’T balance the budget was the water/wastewater fund – which had a $367,000 hole blown in it. This is thanks to all the upgrades we now need for all the new “rooftops” that were added to the City, as Finley likes to put it.
You can thank former mayor Misti Talbert for the first part of the problem: she threw hundreds of thousands of dollars at developers to subsidize their homebuilding – which I have covered HERE, HERE , HERE and HERE. Without all that free money, those homes would have never been built and we wouldn’t need to upgrade and expand the water and sewer systems, right?
Or maybe they WOULD have been built anyways and you just pissed away several hundred thousand dollars for nothing.
I’d argue that they WOULD have been built anyways and the City would still have those hundreds of thousands of dollars they wasted on subsidies – which would then plug the current $367,000 hole in the water budget.
Instead of handing OUT money, the City should have been taking IN several thousand dollars per home in ‘impact fees’ to pay for future upgrades….but they are not that smart.
But there’s more!
When MAYOR Talbert was all done mucking things up by handing out piles of money to homebuilders as head of City council, she took off her MAYOR hat and then put on her LEDC PRESIDENT HAT to muck things up over there for a while!
To wit:
LEDC President Talbert Begs City For $971,000 in ‘Covid’ Money
Talbert: [24 minute mark] “It has come to my attention that the City is blessed with a significant amount of money in the American recovery funds to the tune of 1.978 million dollars, I believe….and the water/wastewater portionof this project will run $971,000 and the funds can be used for this project...I’m quite certain there’s not another project you can put these funds into that….are gonna bring you the potential ROI that this project is gonna bring you…“
Yes, Talbert grabbed almost a million bucks from the City for the LEDC Business Pork project – a project that has taken almost 20 years and $7 million dollars and produced zero tangible benefits.
She actually managed to drain the City coffers TWICE holding a different title each time!
The final irony? Talbert pilfered that $971,000 for WATER/WASTEWATER in the Business Pork! She grabbed money that COULD have been used to help out the CITY water fund (and thus all of you who pay a water bill every month) and is instead using it to AGAIN put ‘pipes in the ground’ in a “Business Park” that has had no tenants for almost TWENTY YEARS!
I say “AGAIN” because back in 2015 and 2016, they ALREADY WASTED piles of money putting water pipes in! [$678,000 to Qro Mex Construction between 12/22/15 and 7/7/16 to install water and wastewater pipes]
That is like, TRIPLE IRONY while wasting seven figures of tax dollars holding TWO different titles with the City! Amazing.
You seriously cannot make this shit up.