I recently sat down with Mayor Marion Bishop and City Manager Marty Mangum to talk about the 2025 city budget and what it means for the citizens of Llano. The conversation started with high level questions about what changes we’ll see this year as a result of the new budget which is about to be adopted; any new services to expect or a reduction of past services, and any investments the City must make in existing infrastructure. The discussion then went into some detail on specific assets and their financial performance, namely The JLK Event Center and Arena, the Lantex Theater, and the Llano River Golf Course all assets which are owned by the City. Finally we talked about what’s needed in the city that hasn’t been addressed in this year’s budget.
Given our interview was the day following publication of the article I wrote about the increase in utility rates here in the city, the mayor started with some follow up points that he wanted to make. Bishop told me that Council’s approach to this year’s budget was a 3.5% increase across the board for salaries and overall spending to keep it in line with inflation. Bishop said that when they started the process in March, they didn’t know that the cost-of-living index would fall dramatically lower to level out at 2.9% year to date. I asked if the budget was finalized, and Mangum said that it’s not. Mangum then added that they felt the overall increase to the average citizens residential utility bill would be an increase a 4.5% given the rate increases for water, sewer, and electricity, but that’s dependent on each individual household’s usage.
As we directed the conversation to the 2025 budget, Bishop said that there really aren’t any changes to existing services nor new services except for a decrease in the days that City collection station will operate (City Dump). That will be reduced by 1 day per week. The rest is status quo.
