FISHER MAINTAINING POSITIVE OUTLOOK FOR 2020-21 BRENHAM BUDGET DESPITE PANDEMIC
Brenham City Manager James Fisher says the city’s foundation for the upcoming fiscal year is “solid”, but it is a foundation marred by uncertainty caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
At a budget workshop meeting Thursday, city officials went through the details of the expected $66.4 million budget, which Fisher said is backed up by a diversified general fund revenue base. The city is still anticipating a revenue shortfall of approximately $1 million, with adjustments and cuts to costs being made where possible.
Fisher said officials have asked the Brenham City Council to allow the city to dip into its fund reserves, if needed. He said the city’s current amount of reserves shifts often and is hard to pinpoint, but he stressed that it cannot and will not go under the required 95 days of reserves.
Fisher said the city wants to avoid letting go of employees and that it does not anticipate doing so at this time, but as employees are the city’s greatest expenditure, layoffs are brought up in any conversation about cutting costs. He added that when comparing Brenham to cities of similar size, Brenham’s employee count is noticeably higher, so it has to analyze what it has and determine what is necessary.
According to Fisher, there are five positions within the city that are currently frozen. The city will evaluate those positions throughout the new fiscal year as needed, and it may eliminate them from the budget if it determines they are not needed. The city is currently focusing on promoting and hiring employees internally, instead of externally.
Fisher said the changes already made during the current fiscal year extend into the upcoming year, and as a result, not many new changes were needed.
With the new budget being so similar to the current one, Thursday’s workshop was the only one needed to work through the budget. A final draft of the budget will be presented at the Brenham City Council’s meeting August 6th, with public hearings and budget adoption in the following weeks.