San Marcos City Council: Upcoming Changes

City Council meetings meet every first and third Tuesday of every month as well as the Fridays before. Friday’s packet meeting is a workshop that city council has before every city council meeting on Tuesday. They discuss the items that have been agenized for upcoming meeting. They go down the list and the mayor will ask if there is any additional information they don’t already have that they would like staff to collect which gives city staff time to research any questions that council would like to have. Trey Hatt, City of San Marcos Communication Specialist, talks about Tuesdays Meeting.

“Some of the things that we will be discussing at Tuesdays City council meeting are 2nd and final readings of ordinances that would increase drainage rates, water and waste water rates and electric rates. The city council is going to consider ordinances of the second of two readings  adopting a city budget for fiscal year 2014 which begins October 1st of this year and adopting a tax rate for the 2013 tax year. The city council is also going to consider, on first reading, an ordinance amending the San Marcos city code that would prohibit smoking in the enclosed areas of all public places and work places,” said Trey Hatt.

The San Marcos City Council did adopt the Fiscal Year 2014 budget in the sum of $166,738,822 – an increase of 3.5% over the 2013 budget.  The City’s annual budget supports public safety, general government, planning and development, engineering and capital projects, public services, parks and recreation, library, electric, water, wastewater and drainage utilities, and special services.

The Council also set the tax rate for the 2013 tax year at $0.5302 per $100 of taxable value, the same as it has been for the past six years. It will raise 3.2% more revenue than last year’s collections due to an increase in existing property values.

Council also approved an ordinance on first reading that would amend our City Code by prohibiting smoking in the enclosed areas of all public places and workplaces, including all City-owned and leased property. The effective date would be June 1, 2014 (unless they have a permit for additions that would accommodate an area for smoking outside, such as a deck or patio, submitted by June 1, 2014; their effective date would be Jan. 1, 2015). City-owned and leased property would go smoke-free Jan. 1, 2014. Second and final reading of the ordinance is scheduled for Oct. 2.

Niloofar Torabi, KTSW News.