Wichita Falls city councilors talk tax rate hikes as public safety crisis looms

Although a tax rate reduction for Wichita Falls residents is in a proposed budget, City Council members began discussing possible rate hikes Tuesday after members of the Wichita Falls Police Department made passionate pleas for higher pay.

Councilors met in a special session to consider a new budget that will begin Oct. 1

The proposed budget calls for a 4 percent across-the-board raise for city employees.

But Sgt. John Spragins, a representative of the Wichita Falls Police Officers Association, said that’s not enough to keep Wichita Falls out of a public safety crisis.

“We are pushing this problem down the road, and we are going to have some bad effects,” Spragins said.

He said Wichita Falls has the lowest police pay on a list of towns the city staff uses for budget comparisons.

“This train is going down the track and is going to crash,” Spragins said.

He said other Texas cities of similar size surged ahead of Wichita Falls on police salaries.

“We can make this right. We can give them 16 or 17 percent (raises).  It may take some tax increase,” he said.

“It’s unreal, the cost for police officers,” police Chief Manuel Borrego said.

He said similar cities in Texas start their police officers at about $70,000 annually, which is about $10,000 higher than Wichita Falls.

“If we don’t have the pay like other cities, they’re not going to come,” said Borrego, who is currently about 20 officers short in his department.

“We can’t keep lowering the tax rate and not have any money to get these people where they need to be,” Councilor Jeff Browning said. “Nobody wants to say it — I say raise taxes.”

“I agree with you,” Councilor Tom Taylor said.

“To lower the tax rate to save $500,000 on a $200 million budget is kind of silly,” Councilor Bobby Whiteley said.

Councilor Michael Smith said if Wichita Falls doesn’t do something now it will cost even more later. He also noted the cities Wichita Falls compares itself to are growing.

“And we’re not growing,” he said.

City Manager Darron Leiker called the dilemma an economic development problem.

“We need to grow the community. That’s why we’re last compared to a lot of other cities,” he said.

Leiker said Wichita Falls is “dead last” on the amount of tax money it brings in.

State law limits how much local governments can raise their tax rates. Cities can increase their rates up to 3.5 percent a year before automatically requiring a public vote. The deadline for doing that for the next fiscal year has already passed.

Councilors could consider raising the rate to just under the 3.5 percent mark before they finalize a budget in September, but the city’s financial officer, Stephen Calvert, said that would only raise just over a half million dollars.

Mayor Tim Short said the city could also use some of $4 million earmarked for savings to raise police pay.

“Something needs to be done. If this is to be the growing, thriving community we all want to live in, we have to do something about our public safety folks,” Short said.

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This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: WF City councilors talk tax rate hikes as public safety crisis looms