Mayor Gunter Leads City on Spending Spree to Liquidate Excess $1.6 Million in Sales Tax Revenue

SAN ANGELO, TX — Mayor Brenda Gunter went on a tirade against the deterioration of the Concho River banks, dead trees, and wood rot at Fort Concho at City Council Tuesday morning.

What began as a rundown of the sales tax surplus by City of San Angelo Finance Director Tina Dierschke, Gunter interrupted her, and asked pointed questions about the Concho River stabilization.

Dierschke was able to briefly explain to council that the sales tax collections are $1.6 million in excess of budgeted. Some of that excess has paid $540,000 for brand new Ford Explorer police interceptors in addition to $125,000 for Concho River bank stabilization. The surplus balance is exactly at $941,000, Dierschke said.

“The Concho River is one of our greatest assets,” Gunter said. She expressed concern that another rain may wash out sidewalks, or upturn more trees. Then she added that the drought killed 80-100 trees. She wanted tree irrigation fixes added to what morphed into a spending spree of excess sales tax collected over what Dierschke originally estimated would be collected at the beginning of the fiscal year in October 2017. The amount $1.6 million is in excess of that budget.

Assistant City Manager Rick Weise explained that the current short-term plan was to fix three “hot spots” along the river and to continue bank stabilization from the Johnson Dam near Oakes and eastward to the Rio Concho Crossing.

Weise and City Parks Director Carl White are subsidizing the Concho River banks by leveraging grant money. The grant money hasn’t arrived. It was expected to arrive in the fall, White said.

“Should be here in the fall? As we’re falling apart, where will we be?” Gunter asked White. Gunter said it’s already the fall, being mid-September.

Weise suggested that the money already allocated, along with the anticipated grant money, be used to fund fixing the three hot spots and bank stabilization.

Gunter added a request for a spending plan to irrigate trees along the Concho River.

Before the hot spots along the Concho River could be resolved, Gunter tore into City staff about the deterioration of buildings on Fort Concho, the national historic landmark under the City’s care.

“Fort Concho is a historic asset to the city and state. There’s wood rot, things need to be painted. What’s the plan?” she asked Parks Director Carl White.

White replied that there is a 10-year plan. “We can hire a contractor, do some of it in-house,” White said. But if the council gave him the option to leverage hiring a contractor, he could get the repairs accomplished much sooner, he promised.

“It has to be done now. [The Fort] is in a terrible state of wood rot," Gunter said.

Weise asked if the mayor was asking to subsidize Fort Concho repairs from the general fund? Sales tax collections land in the general fund.

“Let me repeat this and be clear on what I have put forward. Number one, we must do tree irrigation… we must afford an irrigation system for our trees," Gunter presented her plan. Number two is $200,000 for the animal shelter to build a new garage. Gunter wanted the traffic system battery backup for $200,000, and to pay for repaving the Station 618 parking lot. Then she wanted $220,000 additional to go to bank stabilization and Fort Concho. This is in addition to $370,000 equipment replacement at the City. And then there's Fort Concho, she said previously.

In the future, we need to adjust sales tax revenue up to accommodate those expenses, Gunter said. She was anticipating greater sales tax revenue in FY 2019, and the council added instructions to City staff to increase the sales tax revenue line item in next year’s budget.

The FY 2019 sales tax revenue budget is higher than FY2018's conservative estimate, but not as high as FY2018's generous collections. The council took the liberty to slightly increase the sales tax revenue estimates for FY2019 in order to spend more money, but the budget is not as high as FY2018's actual collections.

Then Councilman Tommy Hiebert declared streets and roads are still in need of repair and said, “We have got to have a discussion about how we are going to [fix them].”

He said he realized $1.6 million is a drop in the bucket, but Hiebert wondered if the City needed to save some of that money for “major, major” projects.

“Maybe at some point, that $1.6 million we have every year, we start saving that to impact all of our citizens,” Hiebert said.

Councilwoman Lucy Gonzalez wanted to get the restrooms at the Martin Luther King Park. Councilman Harry Thomas said the MLK restrooms have been on the spending list for longer than either of them has been on council. The gist of his statement was it would not matter to keep the restrooms on the backburner while the mayor’s priorities are funded.

Gunter’s motion to spend money passed with a vote of 7-0. The plan to spend the money will be sent to City staff to come up with a spending plan.

Later the council unanimously approved the FY 2019 budget. The budget does not increase property taxes. It remains the same, at $0.07760 per $100 in property valuation.