By Chris Moore

chris.moore@panews.com

 

NEDERLAND — City Hall was eventful this week as the City Council heard presentations from department heads to begin the process of approving a budget for the next fiscal year.

 

Budget

 City Manager Chris Duque said that, as of Monday, the city did not have the certified property values or the proposed tax rates from the tax office, which will tell them their rollback and effective rates.

“We need those to move forward,” he said. “We have ideas of what they are going to be, but we still have to get that information before it is all locked in.”

Duque said that Monday’s presentations at City Hall were just the beginning of a process that will last until the beginning of September.

“(Monday) was the day for department heads to say, ‘Hey, we’re asking for this,’’’ Duque said. “They asked for a truck or more people and things like that. That’s where they present that information to the council. That way the council can understand what to start thinking about.”

Duque said that since Monday’s presentations were done in a workshop format, the setting was more relaxed and allowed council members to ask the department heads questions about their proposals and operations.

“A good example was the finance director was talking about needing more money to pay for credit card fees,” Duque said. “(The council) wanted to know why. We started talking about how we’ve gone more to online bill pay. We’re doing much more credit card transactions in the water department and the municipal court, and we have chosen to absorb some of those fees. The more people we have using the credit card option, the more fees you have. One little discussion could lead to another and that setting helps because they are able to explain more about their operations.”

Duque said the budget will formally be presented to the council Aug. 13 and the budget will be adopted and approved in ordinance form.

“From (Monday) to Sept. 10, the budget can still be amended by the city council. They can still tell change this or that or to add something. The staff has made their proposals, and it’s really in the council’s hands at that point.”

While the council doesn’t usually add to the proposals, it has happened in the past, Duque said.

“There was a project a few of years ago, a major project came out of that budget workshop that we had not proposed for that fiscal year. We planned it out for about two years down the road. (The) council came back and said that we were doing it next year. We had to figure some things out to make that work. It was a worthwhile project. They just said we couldn’t hold off on it. It was probably the right call to go ahead and get it done now and it’s done.”

 

City Council meeting

The city council held a meeting to discuss regular business Monday afternoon. Among other agenda items was consideration for a resolution that allowed the Nederland Development Corp. Board of Directors to grant incentives to Judice’s Cajun Café.

“Whenever the EDC is going to spend over $10,000, the council has to approve it,” Duque said. “When they do these incentives, which are well over $10,000, the council has to approve it by state law. It’s pretty much a formality. It’s similar to what they did to help out Whataburger a few months ago.”

The EDC granted Judice’s Cajun Café $100,000 in incentives compared to the $150,000 in incentives given to Whataburger in February.

Duque said that the council also sold a pipeline easement to ExxonMobil Oil Corp.

“That was unexpected revenue that came in,” he said. “When we talked about after we get the check for that pipeline, we’re going to put that in the Capital Outlay Fund to fund future capital projects.”

The pipeline revenue will help generate matching funds for several hazard mitigation grants for which the city has applied.