ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
It is budget time for the local governing entities, and Tuesday evening, the Liberal City Commission had its own version of those discussions at its most recent meeting.
“The City's 2026 Notice of Budget Hearing was published in the High Plains Daily Leader and Times Sept. 4, and it contained a proposed total budget amount of $66,090,580, a mill levy dollar amount of $8,131,454, which equates to an estimated mill levy of 50.367 mills, based on the July 1 estimated valuation,” City of Liberal Chief Financial Officer Brian Mannel said. “For the past three years, the City of Liberal has kept mill dollars flat – $6,932,519 in 2023, $$6,932,801 in 2024, and $6,932,800 in 2025. These efforts have kept expenses in check for everyday residents but have depleted cash significantly in our general fund. In 2023, the City of Liberal started the year with $4.4 million and ended with $2.8 million. In 2024, the City of Liberal started the current year with $2.8 million and ended with $2 million. We’re currently sitting on a balance of less than $1 million in the general fund for 2025, with an estimation of $4.1 million in receipts scheduled to come in. When considering payroll and expenses through the fourth quarter, we may roll less than $1 million in 2026. If not addressed in the 2026 fiscal year, reductions in staff and/or services would need to happen, which is why we have opted to keep the mills the same but take increased valuations. We also need to improve the health of the general fund for bond ratings. With that being said, we are only about 5 percent short from our year-to-date budget revenue goals, so the issue is low cash rollover and the inflationary environment compared to the past few years. On Nov. 1, the final assessed valuation will be determined, for which the number of mills necessary to fund our dollar request is subject to change; however, the levied dollars will not change. The City of Liberal will exceed the Revenue Neutral Rate for 2026.”
Commissioners then had the chance to share their thoughts.
“We’ve all seen the news of the increase in mills from the county, and I have heard nothing but concerns from citizens, families, single parents, senior citizens, etc., about how this is going to affect them financially in a lot of ways,” Commissioner Janeth Vazquez said. “There are people who are considering leaving Liberal. I know it’s not the City of Liberal that had the increase, but I would like to see if there’s any way we could get creative and see some type of mill reduction. It doesn’t have to be significant, but as a single parent myself, this will increase my taxes quite a bit. I want us to see if there’s anything we can do as far as some sort of reduction. I definitely feel for the families who are struggling financially. With the inflation and everything else, the price of everything has gone up. I feel like if we could get creative, we could do something. I can’t just sit back and not share some of the concerns I’ve been hearing.”
“The mill adjustment, if I remember correctly, as far as the estimate ... the estimate for a $250,000 home, from what we were looking at, is $200 or somewhere around there a year,” Liberal Vice Mayor Matt Landry said. “It’s not us that’s the problem, it’s the county that’s the problem. I think the citizens of this city need to understand this isn’t a shot across the bow by the city at all. We’re keeping everything on our end the same, because if we don’t keep it the same, that’s us going backwards and borrowing against, which would put us in the exact scenario the county’s in. And that will be even worse, because that will have to be passed on in a bigger way, and then that turns into an even more massive issue. Everyone’s got some sticker shock because of what the county did, and the county needs to take some responsibility for what’s going on. We shouldn’t be the ones who have to pad poor management and poor leadership from the county to fix the issue.”
“During the budget session, I presented an option where we could do at least a token mill decrease,” Liberal Mayor Jose Lara said. “I understand with the budget, in reducing the mills the past couple years, that has definitely gutted our general fund. However, I did present that option where we could do that decrease, but the majority of the commission decided to stay with the flat mills option. I really do think, especially seeing how things ended up with the county – and we all knew that increase would be at least 13 mills – we needed to do at least a token reduction to show the community we were going to continue helping where we could and how we could. That being said, I think it’s a little too late now to really address this issue more. But I know there’s definitely some disappointment because we were not able to do that token reduction during that timeframe due to the decisions made. And I think we’re already past the deadline, so I don’t even know if there’s anything we could do now. I really wish there was something the City of Liberal could have done to help with this process.”
“I feel like reducing the mill levy the past few years and keeping the dollars the same is what’s helped us through and helped us stand firm this year,” Commissioner Ron Warren said. “If we were going to do anything, we probably should have done it earlier. At this point, considering where we stand with the general fund and everything else, it wouldn’t do the public any service to reduce it this year and maybe make an increase next year. This is an effort to not make the same mistakes as other people. We need to think forward even more because we are responsible for making those decisions for people in the community, and we need to make good decisions for them.”
The discussions then continued.
“In terms of what Ron was just saying, that was our fault as much as anyone else’s,” Lara said. “At that point, Rusty [Varnado] came through and basically ordered us to go revenue neutral when in reality, we should have reducing the mills every year while taking a little more from the valuation increases. That being said, it really is on this commission to be more informed and more active in these aspects – the county had to do a 13-mill increase after hosting eight budget sessions, while we had a five-hour budget session and will remain stable. We’re nowhere nearly as involved as we need to be in this process, and we need to be more involved moving forward.”
After some more discussion, the commission ultimately approved the budget by a margin of 3-2, with Lara and Vazquez voting no.
