Georgetown
our excellent city services, builds infrastructure and plans for the future, provides competitive compensation for our valuable employees and maintains our low tax rate,” City Manager David Morgan said.
It includes a 3 percent average merit raise for noncivil service employees at a total cost of $708,618. Also, $116,640 is budgeted in raises for 111 employees to stay competitive with the market.
The pay raises that firefighters and police officers would receive when they complete each additional year of service are budgeted at $853,958. A 5 percent increase in employee health insurance premiums will cost the city about $290,000 in the proposed budget. It will cost employees an average of $11 per month.
The proposed budget also has $4.7 million in bond money approved by voters in 2015 to pay for expanding Leander Road, Southeast Inner Loop and Southwestern Boulevard.
The city is building fire station No. 7 at 2711 E. University Ave. and has included $6.2 million in construction costs and $715,832 in operating costs for it in the proposed budget.
The budget also includes $5 million for a downtown garage parking at Sixth and Main streets, $350,000 for improvements to the surface of the downtown parking lot near the library on Eighth Street and $100,000 for improvements to the parking lot at Blue Hole.
The Neighborhood Traffic Management Program will cost $20,000. The program will include a study of multiple aspects of traffic, safety and congestion.
Thirty-one new employees at an estimated total cost of $2,485,843 are included in the proposed budget. Those positions include a landscape planner, a parks maintenance worker, a safety inspector, 14 firefighters, a school resource officer, an animal control officer, a fleet technician and two public improvements inspectors.
Other new positions are a business improvement process employee, an information system technology administrator and administrative assistant, and a parttime audiovisual position being converted to full-time.
Other new positions that are paid for by fees and won’t affect the tax rate are a treatment plant technician, two water services technicians, a water services supervisor and inspection supervisor, and a part-time airport maintenance worker being converted to a full-time position.