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Bandera City Council members receive a presentation from Texas Municipal Retirement System Actuarial Analyst Kenneth Oliver during their Aug. 27 regular meeting.
Photo by Jessica Nohealapa’ahi
September 5, 2024
Notes from Bandera City Council
By Jessica Nohealapa’ahi
The Bandera Prophet
As they continue to work on the next fiscal year’s budget, Bandera City Council members are exploring options to try to save money.
Kenneth Oliver, actuarial analyst with the Texas Municipal Retirement System, provided potential alternatives to the city’s retirement benefits, which he said are currently maxed out at the highest level.
The least painful possibility, he said, would be to convert the plan to a symmetrical program with a non-retroactive Cost of Living Allowance (COLA), in which all retirees receive the same increase annually, rather than stepped based on when they retired. City employees are vested after five years.
“I don’t want to hurt employees,” Council Member Debbie Breen said. “According to Mr. Oliver, we have the Cadillac version. Can we afford the Cadillac version? Maybe we should be driving a Ford instead. We have 1,000 people in this community. It’s not like we have a huge income [boost] in our revenues.”
The program with its current benefits has been in place since 2000, Oliver said, adding cities have one more year under current legislation to adopt the non-retro COLA.
“We’ve had this program in place for 24 years,” Council Member Tony Battle said. “When we get down to brass tacks, it would save $30,000 a year. I think our employees deserve the benefit. I think it’s a great retention tool. I think it’s a great recruition tool.”
Council members also considered the addition of a full-time deputy marshal, which with salary and benefits would cost $84,185; Welcome to Bandera signs, which would cost approximately $62,000; parking lot improvements on Cedar Street, at an approximate cost of $100,000; salaries for mayor and council members, which would cost a total of $45,759; and maibox kiosks and 58 streetlight replacements, for costs unknown.
The city’s draft budget has a $62,276 surplus in the general fund. Council discussed approving the budget before immediately allocating the surplus to any further expenditures.
“The marshal was not allowed to ask for money last year because it was not in the original budget, and she lost someone to the Sheriff’s Office,” Breen said, clarifying if the budget was approved with the surplus, the marshal’s request to hire a full-time deputy marshal could still be considered in 2025. “I’ve been getting feedback from businesses, and one has been broken into twice. It’s only a matter of time before others are.”
In other business, Bandera Marshal Nancy De Foster reported the Marshal’s Office during July responded to 90 calls for service and deputies drove a total of 3,691 miles. Thirteen citations were written, nine warnings were issued, and 653 residential and commercial security checks were performed. The response time for priority calls was under two minutes.
From March to August, 33 male and 34 female feral cats were spayed and neutered (10 females were pregnant with eight to 10 kittens per litter), with vouchers provided by the county’s animal control services. More vouchers are available monthly to neuter stray cats in the city limits. For more information on the city’s Trap, Neuter, Release program, go to https://www.banderatx.gov/marshals-office/page/tnr-trap-neuter-release
Kenneth Oliver, actuarial analyst with the Texas Municipal Retirement System, provided potential alternatives to the city’s retirement benefits, which he said are currently maxed out at the highest level.
The least painful possibility, he said, would be to convert the plan to a symmetrical program with a non-retroactive Cost of Living Allowance (COLA), in which all retirees receive the same increase annually, rather than stepped based on when they retired. City employees are vested after five years.
“I don’t want to hurt employees,” Council Member Debbie Breen said. “According to Mr. Oliver, we have the Cadillac version. Can we afford the Cadillac version? Maybe we should be driving a Ford instead. We have 1,000 people in this community. It’s not like we have a huge income [boost] in our revenues.”
The program with its current benefits has been in place since 2000, Oliver said, adding cities have one more year under current legislation to adopt the non-retro COLA.
“We’ve had this program in place for 24 years,” Council Member Tony Battle said. “When we get down to brass tacks, it would save $30,000 a year. I think our employees deserve the benefit. I think it’s a great retention tool. I think it’s a great recruition tool.”
Council members also considered the addition of a full-time deputy marshal, which with salary and benefits would cost $84,185; Welcome to Bandera signs, which would cost approximately $62,000; parking lot improvements on Cedar Street, at an approximate cost of $100,000; salaries for mayor and council members, which would cost a total of $45,759; and maibox kiosks and 58 streetlight replacements, for costs unknown.
The city’s draft budget has a $62,276 surplus in the general fund. Council discussed approving the budget before immediately allocating the surplus to any further expenditures.
“The marshal was not allowed to ask for money last year because it was not in the original budget, and she lost someone to the Sheriff’s Office,” Breen said, clarifying if the budget was approved with the surplus, the marshal’s request to hire a full-time deputy marshal could still be considered in 2025. “I’ve been getting feedback from businesses, and one has been broken into twice. It’s only a matter of time before others are.”
In other business, Bandera Marshal Nancy De Foster reported the Marshal’s Office during July responded to 90 calls for service and deputies drove a total of 3,691 miles. Thirteen citations were written, nine warnings were issued, and 653 residential and commercial security checks were performed. The response time for priority calls was under two minutes.
From March to August, 33 male and 34 female feral cats were spayed and neutered (10 females were pregnant with eight to 10 kittens per litter), with vouchers provided by the county’s animal control services. More vouchers are available monthly to neuter stray cats in the city limits. For more information on the city’s Trap, Neuter, Release program, go to https://www.banderatx.gov/marshals-office/page/tnr-trap-neuter-release