SAN BENITO — Street repairs and drainage upgrades are topping the city of San Benito’s priority list as commissioners work on a proposed $14.9 million general fund budget boasting a $1.5 million boost in sales tax revenue.
The proposed budget is nearly $2 million bigger than City Manager Manuel De La Rosa’s previous $13 million proposal, reflecting increased tax revenue stemming from newly reappraised property values, City Commission Rene Garcia said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, De La Rosa is boosting sales tax revenue projections from $4 million to $5 million, up from $3.5 million in the city’s current $14.1 million general fund budget.
“The budget looks good,” Mayor Rick Guerra said, adding officials are planning to dip into the city’s $9.6 million share of the American Rescue Plan Act.
“Hopefully, the federal money’s going to help us,” he said. “It’s not going to meet the needs for everything but it’s a start.”
Holding off water rate hike
Officials are trying to hold off on boosting some of the Rio Grande Valley’s highest water rates.
Last year, Don Gonzalez, the city’s financial advisor with Estrada Hinojosa & Company in San Antonio, recommended officials consider a water rate hike to help fund a $9 million bond issue largely aimed at overhauling the city’s sewer system to comply with a 2012 Texas Commission on Environmental Quality order requiring the city meet a March 2023 deadline or face severe fines and corrective action.
Months before Gonzalez’s recommendation, De La Rosa told commissioners he planned to call for a water rate study, discussing the possibility of boosting rates to offset a water production fund shortfall of $880,000.
“We’re going to do whatever we can to put it off,” Garcia said, adding “the water system must be self-sustaining.”
So far, commissioners have called for a $30,000 study to determine whether consultants would recommend a rate hike.
“The study’s coming in and we need to figure out what we’re going to do,” Guerra said. “We have so many water breaks and we lose so much water.”
Garcia suggested appointing a citizens advisory board to oversee the water system.
“It’s a board we could use to make decisions on water rates,” he said. “I’m a firm believer the citizens can help us make better decisions.”
Tapping street funding
In a workshop earlier this week, commissioners met with De La Rosa to work on the proposed budget coming with a $4.5 million fund balance while including about $6.1 million in unassigned funds, Garcia said.
“That gives us the freedom to do things in San Benito that we haven’t done in many years,” he said, referring to the cash pool. “It’s time to do something. But we’ve got to be conservative.”
Every year, officials set aside about $450,000 to fund street repairs.
“We want to find ways to put more money in there,” Garcia said.
While working with crews to review street conditions, Guerra said he added 40 more streets to the city’s list of about 76 roadways tapped for repairs.
Now, Garcia is proposing tapping into the city’s unassigned fund account to finance street repairs.
“The streets are the No. 1 priority,” he said. “It’s time we look at that money and see how we can best use it for the community. We want to see how we can fix our roads — how we can address more streets.”
Planning drainage upgrades
Meanwhile, Guerra and Garcia proposed dipping into the city’s share of the American Rescue Plan Act to fund drainage upgrades.
“I want to make sure we focus specifically on drainage,” Garcia said, pointing to last month’s street flooding amid weeks of rain.
“We had certain areas of town that flooded and water flow wasn’t there. We need to prevent a disaster like San Benito experienced in 1991,” he said, referring to the April 1991 flood. “We want to make sure we prevent damage and loss of property.”
Meanwhile, Guerra proposed targeting flood-prone areas such as the La Gallina and La Palma neighborhoods.
“What is the most dire need right now?” he asked, adding he wanted to target those areas for drainage upgrades.
Planning for growth
As officials work on the proposed budget, Garcia said they’re considering hiring a city planner to help map growth.
“I want to make sure we’re ready for growth, economic development,” he said. “I want to assure the planning department is ready for growth. We have to make sure we have proper staffing so you expedite the process and focus on the growth needs of the city. I don’t want to put up roadblocks when it comes to developers. We anticipate good growth. We’ve got rooftops coming up across town and we’ve got proposed subdivisions.”
Operating water plant
Nearly a year after re-opening the city’s $17 million water plant, Garcia said officials are considering hiring more technicians to oversee the plant built more than 10 years ago.
“I feel we need additional oversight in water production,” he said. “In the past, we had water issues at plant No 2. We had expensive problems providing water.”
In 2014, a previous commission shut down the plant, arguing it didn’t properly operate before filing a lawsuit against companies behind its design and construction.
