Your trusted source for community news
Local news. Local voices. Local impact. Sign up for the Branch Herald’s free newsletter covering Farmers Branch, Addison and Carrollton.
Farmers Branch general employees would not receive merit raises next year under the city’s current budget recommendation, even as officials expect higher health care costs and consider a higher credit card fee for utility customers.
Jay Patel, the city’s finance director, told council members during a June 16 study session that staff is reviewing the fiscal year 2026-27 budget as it weighs revenue projections, department requests and council priorities.
Patel said the city considered merit-based raises of up to 3% for all city staff, then reduced the option to 2% and later 1%. Still, staff is not recommending raises for city employees, he said.
The recommendation does not affect public safety step increases. Patel said public safety employees would continue receiving increases of 2% to 5%, depending on where they are in those plans.
The city also expects health care costs to increase after a request for proposals. Patel said staff plans to recommend that the city absorb those costs rather than pass them on to employees.
Council member David Reid asked about the cost of possible raises. Patel said a 1% increase for all city staff would cost about $450,000, while a 2% increase would be close to $900,000.
Council member Elizabeth Villafranca said the lack of raises is concerning and would require more caution in city spending in the coming months.
The budget update also included proposed fee changes. One would rename the city’s solid waste fee as a landfill closure reserve fee to clarify that the money is being set aside for the eventual closure of the city landfill.
Mayor Terry Lynne said the current wording has led some residents to believe the city is charging for trash service.
“It is not a trash fee, and we’ve never charged for trash in the city,” Lynne said.
The other proposed change would affect utility customers who pay by credit card. Patel said the city currently charges a 2.5% credit card fee, but its existing software does not apply the fee uniformly. A large portion of customers enrolled in automatic payments through the utility billing system are not being charged the fee, he said.
Staff is proposing to move the charge through the city’s credit card processor, which would require increasing the utility billing credit card fee to 3.5%.
Council member Roger Neal questioned whether the city could avoid the increase or find ways to reduce the effect on residents, saying families are struggling and the city should look for ways to limit costs where possible.
Council members also reviewed proposed updates to Farmers Branch Manske Library policies tied to state library accreditation requirements. Parks and Recreation Director Robert Diaz said the changes are not major policy shifts.
The longest discussion centered on public information requests and how the city should handle repeat requesters who take up significant staff time.
David Berman, the city attorney, told council members that state law allows cities to adopt procedures when one requester consumes more than 36 hours of staff time in a fiscal year or more than 15 hours in a month. The proposed policy would not allow the city to deny records, he said, but would allow the city to require payment upfront in some repeat-request situations.
Berman said public information requests have grown more complex as city records have shifted from paper files to emails, text messages, social media posts, videos and other digital records. One recent requester submitted about a dozen requests and follow-up requests involving hundreds of pages and more than 1,000 pages of records, he said.
“We have an obligation to respond,” Berman said.
The proposed policy also would allow the city to request photo identification in some cases to verify that requests are coming from the same person. It would not apply to news media, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations or elected officials acting in their official capacity.
Reid said he supports transparency but believes some recent requests have gone beyond ordinary information gathering. He said anything the city can do to recoup costs and limit frivolous requests would be beneficial.
Berman said the city cannot refuse requests simply because officials believe they are frivolous.
“We can’t eliminate frivolous requests,” Berman said. “We have to address all of them equally.”
Villafranca said staff is being strained by the volume of requests. She said she had asked at the previous council meeting how many public information requests had been made during a two-month period and was told the number was 266.
Lynne said he recently turned over 1,430 pages of documents and 98 pages of text messages in response to public information requests. He said the city is required to fulfill those requests, even when they take many hours of staff time.
Local News Matters.
