Bonds for Better Bellaire 2016

We had a great turnout at Monday night's town hall meeting on the upcoming bond election.  The residents who spoke posed some very good questions, and prompted a lively discussion covering a number of important issues.  Thanks to all who participated or perhaps watched at home; if you missed it, the video replay is available, here.

As was presented at the town hall meeting, we're working hard to ensure you have access to all the information you need to make an educated decision when you cast your vote.  Please visit our dedicated Bonds for Better Bellaire 2016 page on the City website for details and supporting documents:  bellairetx.gov/bonds2016.

Additionally, we invite you to submit any questions you may have about the bonds by e-mail to bonds@bellairetx.gov.

Here's a quick overview of the 3 propositions:

The Difficulty of Making Easy Decisions – Or, Paying for the Things We Take for Granted

The City Council overwhelmingly recognizes the urgent need to move forward with critical water and wastewater infrastructure improvements. So much so, after due and careful consideration of proposed projects the debate has become less about the decisions themselves and more about who should make them. As our community’s duly-elected representatives, we take very seriously our responsibility to be good stewards of our physical assets. Given that responsibility, do we first have to stop and ask for permission to do what we know needs to be done?

Stewardship of Our Physical Assets – Or, Paying for the Things We Take for Granted

One of the greatest challenges we currently face is the unfortunate convergence of a number of long-neglected, big-ticket items hitting at the same time.  Not only have we continually deferred infrastructure and equipment maintenance and scheduled replacements over the past several years, we’ve also not been setting aside any funds for those needs, either.

FY 2017 Budget Season is Underway

The City's annual budget reflects our priorities as a community, balancing the services and improvements we desire against the costs of delivering them. It also takes account of the bigger picture, representing a set of short-term decisions within the context of longer-term planning.

Budget season runs from the Council planning session in May through final adoption in September, but it's really a year-round process as Council gives policy direction on a variety of issues that are ultimately addressed in the budget. For example, over a period of several months Council expressed its commitment to meaningful increases in public safety compensation, to improve our recruitment and retention of police officers and fire fighters. That discussion culminated in direction to the City Manager back in February to provide additional salary enhancements and incentive pay, and to bring base salaries to the 75th percentile among comparator communities. All such decisions throughout the year have an obvious budgetary impact that is captured when the City Manager presents the proposed budget each July. For that reason, there aren't many surprises in the document.