Burleson increases property taxes
Burleson City Council approves tax and fee-increasing budget, discusses county bond
BURLESON — The Burleson City Council approved increasing property taxes and fees and discussed a bond that’d further increase taxes Monday at City Hall.
Burleson’s property-tax rate is increasing for the first time since fiscal-year 2015-2016 to $.6627 in the 2024-2025 budget from $.6325 in the 2023-2024 budget.
This tax increase will raise over $4.38 million more than the 2023-2024 fiscal year. Approximately $1.25 million will come from new properties.
Council member Alexa Boedeker asked deputy city manager Harlan Jefferson about wanting transparency on what the increased taxes pay for.
“Several city residents came to me and wanted to know why taxes are being raised and what they will be spent on,” Boedeker said at Monday’s meeting.
City manager Tommy Ludwig said there will be a large presentation outlining all potential changes and improvements to be bid on “at a future council meeting.”
The 2024-2025 budget includes a 2.25% growth of existing properties on their property tax revenue and a 3.69% increase on new properties.
The total assessed valuation of all properties within the City of Burleson for the 2023-2024 current fiscal year is around $6.7 billion, including certified and protested values but excluding any exemptions.
The average Burleson home value, which is what the city bases its budget on, in Johnson County increased to $299,889 in fiscal-year 2023-2024 from $282,966 in 2022-23. Average Burleson homes in Tarrant County are around $286,000.
In the 2024-2025 budget, Burleson is focusing on having a high performing city organization, a dynamic and preferred city, a beautiful, safe and vibrant community and making Burleson a great place to live, Jefferson stated as he presented the budget to the council.
Among the budget’s goals are making sure all the funds have a strong balance while being resilient and flexible to economic impacts, according to the presentation.
Burleson citizens’ top three concerns for the budget were streets and traffic control, police and fire, according to the results of 309 responses to the city’s survey posted on social media.
Council discusses county bond with Johnson County officials
Property taxes could continue to increase if Johnson County’s proposed bond passes in the November 5 election. Johnson County Commissioner Kenny Howell and other Johnson County officials discussed the bond with the council Monday.
The bond would increase the Johnson County property-tax rate $0.0099–an increase of $24.92 annually for the average Johnson County home.
The bond would fund several road and thoroughfare improvements within Johnson County, including an east-west connector, safety improvements for several roads and intersections and railroad-crossing improvements.
During Monday’s meeting council member Victoria Johnson encouraged the Johnson County officials to be specific about which intersections would be impacted or which roads would be fixed to “pique” citizens’ interest.
Let The Burleson Buzz know what else you’d like to know about the bond, and visit JohnsonCountyBond.com to learn more.
Burleson also increasing fees
Along with increasing taxes, Burleson will increase fees to fund its budget. The city is increasing water and wastewater fees, solid waste fees, Hidden Creek Golf Course fees and permit fees and will be charging credit card fees to customers.
The 10,000 gallon water and 5,000 gallon wastewater consumption-level fee—the average residential level, according to Jefferson—will increase $119.07 per month from $112.16.
The 30,000 gallon water and 5,000 gallon wastewater consumption-level will increase the most for residents to $252.71 per month from $237.06.
The 5,000 gallon water and 5,000 gallon wastewater consumption-level fee will increase to $92.85 per month from $87.66.
The 40,000 gallon water and wastewater consumption-level—commercial accounts—will increase to $575.78 per month from $542.58.
Burleson’s water and wastewater fees are still below the Texas average, Jefferson said during his presentation.
Burleson will begin passing credit card fees down to customers October 1. This includes a $3.50 transaction fee for utilities, a 3.25% transaction fee for development services and a 5%/$2.50 minimum for municipal-court charges.
Other non-credit card payment methods—including e-check or pay-by-phone—will still be available to avoid credit-card fees.
Burleson expects to increase solid waste fees to $24.23 per month for residential users from $21.84.
Non-residential users’ small-collection fees are expected to increase $31.50 per month from $26.40 and large-collection fees to increase to $46.73 per month from $39.51.
Burleson has “entered into negotiations with [the city’s] solid waste provider,” to decrease these waste fees that are among the highest in the metroplex, Jefferson said.
Burleson will also increase Hidden Creek Golf Course green fees to up to $3 depending on the day and/or your category (i.e. seniors) from $1.
Burleson will also increase all permit fees to $100 from $75 for a customer’s first five permits and $10 for each additional permit.
City budget includes increased employee benefits
Part of what the city’s increased tax and fee revenue will pay for is increased benefits for city employees.
All city employees will receive an extra paid personal day off annually, along with potentially having the ability to work from home, change their schedule (ex. a four 10-hour day schedule, a 48/96 schedule for fire personnel) and receive tuition reimbursement.
The city will be looking to save on potentially increasing employee-healthcare costs, which are expected to increase 9% annually, according to McGriff Insurance Services rep Lance Pendley’s presentation.
The council directed city staff to look into saving around $300,000 in employee-healthcare costs—opposed to Ludwig’s goal to save “at least” $550,000–so that the impacts to the employees are not as harsh.
All McGriff’s presented ideas would accomplish saving at least $550,000, Ludwig said.
Possible healthcare changes include increased individual and family deductibles, more drugs added to pre-authorization list, HSA contribution-amount changes and premium increases.
Council directs focus in Texas legislation, discusses focusing on cities’ ability to increase sales taxes
After a presentation on Texas legislation at Monday’s meeting, Mayor Chris Fletcher spoke about wanting cities to be able to increase the sales-tax cap to 9.25% and creating a 4C fund specifically to fund public safety with the additional tax revenue.
Mayor Pro Tem Dan McClendon is neutral to Fletcher’s idea but wants to hold a public hearing before the council agrees to add it to the list of items that Focused Advocacy is going to focus on for the City of Burleson.
The council approved of Focused Advocacy focusing on the introduction and approval of a qualified hotel project bill—the same bill that allowed cities like Fort Worth, Grand Prairie and others to build convention-center areas—and actively monitoring bills that would further regulate data-farming uses and any bills that would enable municipalities to reduce speed limits within residential areas during the 89th Texas Legislative Session.
Council could increase homestead exemption
Despite the council increasing citizens’ property-tax rates with the new budget and discussing increasing taxes further with the county bond and Fletcher’s increased sales-tax idea, the council could help citizens’ save on taxes by approving increasing the city’s homestead-tax exemption to 5%.
The Burleson City Council will meet again September 23 at City Hall.
Thank you Brandon for recapping this important info for Burleson!
Great summary. Clear and free of alphabet soup designations for projects (the XYS funds are not compatible with the RCDE factor). 😊😊