City Council holds public hearing on upcoming budget

Andrea Hancock, The Norman Transcript, Okla.
3 min read
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Apr. 25—On Tuesday, residents shared their thoughts on Norman's financial future at a public hearing held by the City Council.

During the regularly-scheduled Tuesday meeting, Anthony Francisco, the City's Director of Finance, presented the City's projected budget for fiscal year 2025, which begins July 1. The City is projected to generate $307,477,182 in revenue against a projected $297,924,185 in expenses.

As usual, sales tax will be the City's biggest source of revenue. Sales tax is projected to comprise 30.6% of the total revenue, with utility fees and charges coming in second with a projected 23.5%.

Sales tax makes up an even bigger slice of the pie in the City's general fund at 63.8%. The general fund is projected to have $108,486,122 for the next fiscal year against a projected $108,316,271 in spending.

"This revenue pie looks different in Norman and in any other city in Oklahoma, than it would in the general fund of any other city in any other state than Oklahoma, because Oklahoma is the only state that does not use property tax as a revenue source for the general fund operations," Francisco said.

The Council did not make any final decisions about the budget for the next fiscal year, but allowed residents to voice their thoughts. One resident, Dan Munson, gave a few suggestions for changes in the budget he'd like to see.

The first was to appropriate funding to building inspections to mitigate the City's risk if a building is poorly made.

"Buildings typically come with a one-year warranty," Munson said. "I'd like to see $15,000 allocated for building inspections in this year's budget, and I'd like for that inspection to take place before that one-year warranty period comes to an end."

He noted that the City is anticipating a 1-percent increase in license and permits revenue, but said he doesn't believe market trends support that.

"If you look at the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of houses being built this year compared to last year is down," Munson said. "Fannie Mae was anticipating the (loan) rate would go down to 5.9%, but recently they readjusted that to 6.4%, so I think it's going to be a tough go."

He questioned the anticipated increase in maintenance costs for the City's transportation fleet granted that there are 17 new buses in the fleet, arguing new vehicles should require less maintenance than the ones they were replacing. He also suggested creating fares for Norman's public transit while leaving paratransit free.

Cynthia Rogers, an economics professor at the University of Oklahoma, expressed concern that the city will run into financial trouble in the next few years.

She said the currently projected 2% growth sales tax revenue "seems reasonable," but worries about projected personnel costs, which are expected to grow 4%.

"So right there we see we have a structural problem going forward," Rogers said. "We can make the budget work this year, but if your personnel cost, which is the biggest bite of your budget, is increasing faster than your revenues — there's not really much hope sales tax revenues are going to skyrocket — we have a problem."

Stephen Ellis, a resident of Ward 4, spoke during the public hearing to urge the Council to protect sales tax revenue — which means, in his opinion, rethinking the proposed arena and entertainment TIF district at University North Park.

"It turns out you can't claim to create a retail draw that's strong enough to induce a ton of new demand from out of town without admitting that you'd also be diverting a ton of retail demand from in town," Ellis said. "All of the sales taxes in the proposed TIF 4 district will stay within the district, because it's being proposed as a 100% sales tax increment."

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