MIDLAND, Texas — On Tuesday, the city of Odessa met to talk about their 2023-2024 proposed budget.
Now, it's the city of Midland's turn.
Midland City Council met Wednesday to discuss their proposed budget for 2023-2024. While they've been hammering out the details amongst each other, they met today at City Hall to lay out their goals with the public.
“We really are trying to increase positions for police and fire, while public safety is a significant focus for us at this time," Midland Mayor Lori Blong said. "So that is a factor in this budget. We're also looking at some capital projects for continuing road improvement and development, $7 million in this budget for continued road development and improvement.”
A major topic of discussion was the property tax rate ceiling. These rates have the potential to have heavy implications for Midland taxpayers.
However, there is good news for the taxpayers because there is expected to be a slight drop in property taxes.
“From the 22-23 fiscal year our tax rate was 36 cents per $100 valuation of property tax," Blong said. "For what we've set today, the ceiling the highest we could go for the coming fiscal year for 23-24 is 35 cents, and so we've reduced the ceiling by one penny per one-hundred-dollar valuation.”
While it's just a penny lower, it had the potential to be lower. City council opted against that by keeping the tax rate at a lower rate.
“We approved the tax rate, instead of saying the 38 cents that we could have gone with as a ceiling," city councilman Dan Corrales said. "We're saying we're willing to go lower and expect less from taxpayers at 35 cents per one hundred as the ceiling today.”
All of these topics lead to one equation: using all of that budget money to keep Midland at the level it is right now, then start on improvements for the benefit of the people.
“We have to maintain what we have. When we're talking about roads, we have to maintain public safety, have enough firefighters and have enough police," Corrales said. "So a lot of it is taking care of what we've got but also using the excess to make the life here in Midland as best as possible.”
The city will continue to talk more about the proposed budget over the course of the month, while the earliest it can be approved is Aug. 29.