Sugar Land, TX – City Manager Michael W. Goodrum recently filed a proposed $453 million budget for fiscal year 2025, which begins Oct. 1. 

The proposed budget includes $313 million for operations and $140.34 million for capital projects. The proposal follows guidelines in the City Council-adopted Financial Management Policy Statements and focuses on strategies and priorities identified by residents to ensure Sugar Land remains one of the nation’s safest cities.

The proposed budget provides for future success, ensures continued financial and operational stability and is structurally balanced and sustainable into the future. It further establishes the city’s leadership in conservative, resilient and responsible stewardship through strategic investment in priority areas. The goal is to balance investment in both operations and capital funding to increase our resiliency in FY25 and into the future. 

“The focus of the budget is an investment in priorities and services that provide high value to the Sugar Land community today and into the future, including public safety, data-based decision making and maintaining a championship workforce,” said Goodrum. “There is tremendous alignment between what City Council identified as their highest priorities for the community and what city staff identified as areas crucial for the organization to focus on.”

Sugar Land has one of the lowest residential tax burdens per capita in comparison to peer cities, in addition to the fact that Sugar Land’s tax rate represents only a small percentage of the total average residential tax burden. The 2024 tax rate will be recommended once the city receives the certified tax roll for 2024 from the appraisal district and completes the required calculations under the tax code.

“As a personnel-driven public safety and service provider, a key priority of our budget is to ensure that we are competitive with the market and fairly compensate first-responders and other employees who work hard to create a life better than our citizens can imagine,” said Goodrum. “Our proposed budget includes funding to implement the updated compensation plan which reevaluated the city’s pay structure as we strive to pay our employees competitively to help attract, retain, and reward our high‐quality talent.”

The proposed capital improvement program totals $734.91 million for 2025-2029, including $6.35 million of the remaining bond projects approved by voters in November 2019.  The five-year CIP includes funding for FY25 projects such as the following:

• $2 million for streets rehabilitation projects;
• $8.7 million for animal shelter construction (to be combined with future potential bond funding);
• $32 million for Brazos River erosion projects;
• $24.8 million for distribution system water main rehabilitation projects, ground water plant rehabilitation projects, emergency generators, ground water storage plant rehabilitation projects, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems to support water infrastructure and elevated water storage plant projects;
• $46.9 million water pump station rehabilitation projects and surface water treatment plant rehabilitation projects;
• $9.7 million for surface water pump station rehabilitation projects;
• $12 million for joint participation in projects such as a Memorial Park  splash pad, Gannoway Lake trails, Sugar Land Trail Phase 1 and Eldridge Park improvements; and
• $2,8 million for landscape replacement for major roadways and next generation Intelligent Transportation Systems -- an advanced application that aims to provide innovative services relating to different modes of transport and traffic management and enable users to be better informed and make safer, more coordinated and 'smarter' use of transport networks.

The proposed budget anticipates the possibility of City Council calling a bond election for November that will provide residents a choice to consider funding up to $350 million for proposed capital projects over the next five to seven years, which equates to approximately $300 million in project costs in 2024 dollars. Potential projects include resident priorities that focus on public safety, streets, traffic and sidewalks, drainage, municipal facilities, and an expanded scope for the planned animal shelter.

Residents identified the potential projects through years of public feedback including the most recent Citizen Satisfaction Survey, as well as sentiment surveys, community meetings, various master plans and City Council input. Projects would be funded with a potential tax rate increase of no more than 5 cents, which is equivalent to an incremental monthly cost to the average resident of less than $5 per month annually – or approximately $20 per month by 2030.

The bond election will give our residents the choice to consider future projects that we’ve been told are important. According to Sugar Land’s last Citizen Satisfaction Survey, 95 percent of residents love calling Sugar Land home. Sugar Land continues to maintain one of the state’s lowest tax rates while also providing the high level of services expected of citizens, including capital projects that address key citizen priorities.

The proposed budget includes planned utility rate increases of about 3 percent per month for residential customers. The new rate allows the utility system to keep up with the cost of inflation, avoiding larger future increases. Per the city’s contract, the current rate for solid waste services will increase from $20.84 to $21.88 per month and will take effect Jan. 1, 2025. 

For more information about the proposed projects, opportunities to provide feedback and to sign up to receive notifications visit www.sugarlandtx.gov/SLBond2024.

A series of budget workshops, open to the public, will be held in August on Thursday mornings at City Hall.   Public hearings will be held in August and September to receive feedback from residents on the proposed budget and tax rate prior to their final approval in September.  The City Charter requires the budget adoption by City Council no later than Sept. 25.  For more information, visit www.sugarlandtx.gov/budget.