August 7, 2007 05:52 - Budget up, tax rate down
By Bill Peterson
Hays CISD trustees agreed Monday night to announce a maximum tax rate for the coming school year of $1.4613, a reduction of more than 31 cents from the Fiscal Year 2006-07 tax rate as a result of last year's school finance restructuring at the state legislature.
The tax rate will fund a budget of $121 million, of which $96 million covers general operations, $20 million covers debt service and $5 million covers food service. Of the school district's proposed general operations budget, 65.5 percent is covered by the state, an increase from 49 percent two years ago. The $96 million for general operations represents an increase of nearly $14 million from last year's figure of $82.2 million
The budget calls for a $782 million deficit, but that might not be cause for alarm. Last year, the school district budgeted for a $1.424 million shortfall, but then revenues came in at $4.1 million more than anticipated and expenditures came in $2.5 million less than budgeted.
Hays CISD Chief Financial Officer Carter Scherff said the entire $5.5 million to the good could go into the district's fund balance, but he proposed to trustees Monday night that $2 million be earmarked for improvements to Tom Green Elementary School, another $1 million go to improvements at Hays High School's south campus and another $500,000 be spent on technology improvements throughout the school district.
That still leaves about $3 million to go into the fund balance, which would sit at $15.1 million, about 16 percent of the general budget.
Trustees will vote on the tax rate and the proposal to spent surpluses on the improvements at an Aug. 20 meeting.
Of the $1.4613 proposed for a tax rate, $1.04 will go to the Maintenance & Operations (M&O) side. One dollar of that $1.04 matches the state-allowed maximum tax rate, with the other four cents allowed by the state for property-poor school districts. Another 42.13 cents of the total tax rate is for Interest and Sinking (I&S), which funds debt service.
Scherff told trustees that property values in the Hays CISD have topped $3 billion for the first time, hitting $3.035 billion. Of that, $2.883 billion is taxable property value. The $431 million increase in taxable property value is the largest in school district history.
Total property value in the school district has nearly doubled in the last five years from $1.535 billion in 2002-03.
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August 8, 2007 19:06 - Lane steps up to Buda mayor
By Bill Peterson
Buda councilmembers made the obvious choice Monday night, unanimously selecting Mayor Pro Tem Bobby Lane as mayor after former Mayor John Trube resigned at the end of July.
Lane knows the landscape in Buda if anyone does. He's on his eighth term with the city council, going all the way back to the middle 1990s. He's been through all the city's changes, never once contributing to the polarization that has, at times, stoked up tension.
Lane will serve until the end of his council term next May. Lane said, naturally, that he was honored.
The council still is to definitively address the vacancy opening on the city council with Lane’s passage to mayor. The mayor in Buda, generally, sets the agenda and votes only if the other six members of the council vote to a tie.
Among the larger tasks for Lane and the council is the passage of a home rule charter once Buda declares a population of 5,000. And, of course, the budget for Fiscal Year 2008 is right on the front burner.
Trube, who served as mayor of Buda for just more than five years, resigned to concentrate on business opportunities.
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August 9, 2007 22:05 - Jim Neuhaus
Commentary
By Bill Peterson
The Hays Highway has taken a bit of leave through most of this summer while the staff discovered, to its lasting edification, that the circling arguments in the Transcendental Aesthetic are motivated by the so-called "problem of reality." Fantastic though the story certainly is, only about 5,000 people worldwide are interested and it came at the cost of missing developments in Hays County, which means we have some catching up to do.
In particular, we're sad to hear of the death of Jim Neuhaus, the former San Marcos school board president who ran unsuccessfully last year against incumbent Democrat Patrick Rose for a seat in the state legislature.
One knew immediately on meeting Neuhaus that he was a very nice man, which raised the question of why he would involve himself with politics. Evidently, an eminent domain issue concerning his ranch property near San Marcos had something to do with it. Neuhaus ran against eminent domain and government's de facto ownership of private homes through excessive property taxation.
But Neuhaus, running as a Republican, stood no chance against the younger and slicker Rose, whose connections and command of the issues through two terms made him virtually unbeatable.
Neuhaus entered public life in 2000, when he ran for the San Marcos school board during very tough financial times for the district. Neuhaus helped dig the San Marcos district out of money trouble, taking the schools a long way towards winning the public's confidence.
Neuhaus, a fitness lover who spent the first half of his adult life in the military, died of a heart attack on July 27 while taking a 20-mile bike ride with his wife, Donna.
You wouldn't have known by looking at him that he was 67, and he certainly wasn't about to slow down. In late June, Hays County Judge Liz Sumter motioned for his appointment to the county's transportation advisory committee and, of course, he received unanimous support.
Neuhaus ran his own gym, Jim's Gym, from 1980 until 2003. He served in the Army from 1959 to 1979, retiring as a major.
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August 11, 2007 22:28 - Buda-fication to begin
Commentary
By Bill Peterson
In 2002, Buda won a grant of $872,000 from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) for the beautification of Main Street.
Thursday, finally, the city will break ground on the beautification project. The groundbreaking is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 16, at the gazebo on the Main Street greenbelt.
City beautification is an odd duck. The very first aspect of any town that people notice is the way it looks. And, yet, beautification isn't nearly as important to the workings of a city as transportation, economic development, wastewater treatment and stormwater drainage.
So, beautification has sat on the back burner for five years and through five city administrators.
On the bright side, the city has during those five years vastly improved its wastewater treatment, opened a truck by-pass to take 18-wheelers off Main Street, built sewage upgrades around town and added substantial retail components to its economic base.
The city has contracted for $1.27 million of work on its beautification, which will include 3,000 feet of sidewalks, old-time street lighting, brick crosswalks, additional landscaping and drainage improvements, public restrooms and 20 new parking spots. Because most of the upgrades are taking place on the eastern side of Main Street and all the businesses are on the western side, commercial disruption should be minimal.
And when all the dust settles, between beautification and the truck by-pass, we'll have a much different, prettier and pleasant downtown Buda. It should really be well worth the wait.
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