Amarillo City Council is set to approve several budgets, including the city’s budget, during their upcoming regular meeting. The council is also set to take action on several spending items and changing the ballot language for the Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinance election.

After first sitting down to go over the budget in late July, Amarillo City Council is finally set to take their first formal vote on the city’s 2024/2025 budget during their September 10th meeting. The city will also vote to set a tax rate, though it remains to be determined what that tax rate will be. The council, per staff’s recommendation, voted to propose a tax rate of $0.38723 per $100 of property valuation, the maximum allowed without calling an election. Though lower than the current rate of $0.39195, the tax rate is effectively a 5.63% increase due to increased appraisal values. The council could choose to adopt a lower rate during the meeting, though they cannot go higher than their proposed rate. The approval of both the budget and tax rate will require two readings, with the second reading for each expected during a special meeting set for September 17th.

We will have a full story breaking down the new city budget shortly. In addition to the city budget, the council will also vote on the budgets for the Amarillo Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation, TIRZ #1, TIRZ #2, TIRZ #3, the Amarillo-Potter Events Venue District, and the Amarillo Hospital District.

The budget isn’t the only AEDC item on the agenda. The council is also set to discuss the recent controversy over the RANGE project funding. Other discussion items on the agenda include an update on West Texas A&M University and the city’s 2025 legislative agenda.

In addition to approving budgets, the council also has just over $1.3 million in spending items on the agenda. The largest of these, 9L, is a change order for the Hollywood Road and River Road Water Reclamation Facilities digester mixing system improvements contract. This change order, the seventh since the initial approval of the contract with Gurney Companies, is to replace a condemned boiler at the Hollywood Road Water Reclamation Facilities. The change will cost $588,044. The original contract was for $16,312,000. If the latest change order is approved, the new total cost for the contract will be $19,562,323.04.

A table with all spending items is included at the end of this article.

The council will also take action to approve new ballot language for the Sanctuary City for the Unborn ordinance election. According to the city, both Potter County and Randall County had technical problems with the original ballot language, stating that it was too long. The council previously discussed the issue during their August 27th meeting, where they also voted to reduce the length of ballot language for a separate measure. The council had previously defended the long ballot language, noting that the proposed ordinance was lengthy and contained numerous complex provisions. The new language will be decided by the council during the meeting, with the draft ordinance provided by the city simply stating “[PROPOSITION LANGUAGE TO BE ADDED UPON DISCUSSION AND ACTION BY COUNCIL].”

The meeting is scheduled to begin at 3:00 pm on September 10th and will be held on the third floor of Amarillo City Hall. The full agenda and agenda packet can be found at this link. Ahead of the regular meeting, the council will hold an executive session meeting at 2:00 pm to discuss downtown property and a budget workshop meeting at 1:00 pm.