BY JAMES T. NORMAN
Next steps
Cost to the city
Manvel budget and incentives
With all the growth and incoming projects, city o cials are looking at a tighter budget. Adding new sta , increasing their pay, paying for the new facilities and servicing the city’s new homes—all while keeping the tax rate steady—is a challenge for the city, Davis said. Incentive deals created by previous boards are also eating away at the city’s potential property tax revenue from new homes, Davis said. At an Aug. 26 budget town hall, City Manager Dan Johnson said city o cials entered into the agreements at the time because the city didn’t have the necessary infrastructure to support these new housing developments. As a result, these agreements helped get devel- opments into the city and funded infrastructure at the expense of future property and sales tax revenue, Johnson said. Across the city’s four major agreements, those total incentive deductions over the deals’ lifetimes could cost nearly $177 million, city documents show. Those deals are set to expire in the next 20 to 25 years, but do include a maximum amount of tax revenue that can be deducted. After city o cials discussed challenges in early August, they came up with ideas for more reve- nue, such as pulling $2 million from the city’s fund balance, which acts as a rainy day fund to cover city expenses in an emergency. This could help pay for new sta and sta requests for FY 2025-26, city documents show, but would take the city’s fund balance down to around $6.5 million. Sales tax revenue is expected to grow by $3.3 million from last scal year too, and should grow more as new businesses come into the area. O cials said in September that they hope a grow- ing revenue source could help recoup the money taken from the fund balance. “There’s going to be a little bit of catching up that needs to be done, and there’s going to be an e ort with that,” Davis said.
Over the next two years, projects will wrap up, all of which city o cials said will help grow the city’s capacity for new sta , residents and services. The new police department, for example, will give the city the capacity to have up to 180 police o cers—up from its current force of about 50, Police Chief Keith Traylor said. Looking ahead years into the future, city o cials said they are potentially eyeing a new city center, which could total 160 acres and sit near Del Bello Boulevard and Manvel Parkway. While much remains up in the air about the project—including timelines and whether the city will fund it as part of a public-private partnership—o cials said they hope such a development could house commercial, recreation and city facilities. Some designs, for example, suggest City Hall could eventually reside at the center. More plans to help guide the city are expected to be updated soon too, including the city’s thoroughfare study and its comprehensive master plan, Abraham said. Those plans could be approved by the end of the year. “We want to be a government that doesn’t just listen to people but also takes action,” Davis said. “When we create a plan, we’re not going to just let it collect dust. We’re going to use it, … because that’s what the people deserve.”
Key:
New sta members
Fund balance
$7.67M $8.32M $8.35M $8.07M $7.47M $6.5M
2020-21 2021-22 2022-23 2023-24 2024-25 2025-26*
7 27 3 8 8 12
1
2
3
4
5
6
General fund budget for city operations
$20M
4
6
5
$15M
3
1
2
$10M
$5M
$0
2021- 22
2022- 23
2023- 24
2024- 25
2025- 26
2020- 21
Fiscal year
Development incentives
Del Bello
Town Center
Valencia
Meridiana
Acres
440 268
271
2,404
Property taxes kept by business Maximum tax allotment
90% 70% 45% 100%
2025
Summer City’s new water tower completed August Police department
$18M $13.47M $42.03M $103.3M
moves into new building Construction begins on City Hall expansion Late 2025-26 Park behind City Hall to potentially begin work Public works building to be completed Manvel water reclamation facility to be completed Akery Lake work continues
*202526 TOTALS ARE PROJECTED AS OF PRESS TIME.
SOURCE: CITY OF MANVEL COMMUNITY IMPACT
2026
What they said
“I’ve encouraged the city of Manvel … to come and use us as a guide. Use us to see how we did things. And learn what we got right, and learn from what we got wrong.” KEVIN COLE, MAYOR OF PEARLAND
Davis has long said city o cials are trying to learn from the past successes and failures of other cities that saw rapid growth, such as Pearland. Pearland Mayor Kevin Cole said he’s encouraged Manvel o cials to do so. Decisions related to areas such as zoning can have a big impact down the road in how a city develops, Cole said.
2027
SOURCE: CITY OF MANVEL COMMUNITY IMPACT
21
PEARLAND FRIENDSWOOD MANVEL EDITION
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