Megan Navarro
DRIPPING SPRINGS — At its July 7 workshop, Dripping Springs City Council discussed smaller items within the fiscal year 2027 budget, including the parkland dedication, parkland development, agriculture, landscaping and sidewalk funds.
Landscaping
According to the city of Dripping Springs Code of Ordinances, the landscaping fund — also referred to as the tree-in-lieu fund — can be used at city property and rights-of-way for improvements and to serve a public service. This includes introduced vegetation or improvements to a lot for forming and berming, irrigation systems, landscape subsurface draining systems, site furnishing, nonstructural retaining walls, etc.
Proposed revenue for the fund in the FY 2027 budget is at $422,913, compared to the $509,913 that the city is projected to end FY 2026 with.
The expenditures include improvements at Sports and Rec Park, Dripping Springs Ranch Park (DSRP), Founders Memorial Park, Charro Ranch Park, Veterans Memorial Park, historic districts, Stephenson Building and city hall, as well as professional services and tree maintenance.
The total proposed expenses come out to $252,000, with a balance forward of $170,913; the expenses for both the adopted and amended FY 2026 budgets were $62,000 and the projected is $87,000.
“The balance forward in the landscaping fund stays pretty steady until FY [20]27. We are using $200,000 of it towards the Stevenson project … Part of the Stevenson project was the rain garden and a lot of landscaping out by the parking lot. Landscaping funding is being utilized for that,” explained deputy city administrator Shawn Cox. “It was also being considered when we were taking on our debt issuance of other revenues that could help offset that project's value.”
Staff also added an additional $5,000 for Veterans Memorial Park in the expenditures to allow for any new plants or other improvements to make it a more “appealing” site, since it is a city property that is used for a lot of events, Cox said.
Sidewalk
Currently, the revenues and balance forward for the FY 2027 budget are both sitting at $829, which is the same as FY 2026. There are also no expenditures.
There are a number of requirements when building a subdivision or property in town. Part of that is putting in a sidewalk and the city has a fee-in-lieu that developers can pay into, which then helps fund sidewalk projects, according to Cox.
“[There is] not a lot in the fund. We don't anticipate a lot coming into the fund for FY [20]27. If a development comes in or if a commercial property or someone comes in [that] would require a sidewalk based on their site planning in our ordinances and they wanted to pay the fee-in-lieu, we might have a revenue coming in there, but right now, we don't anticipate any of that for FY [20]27,” Cox explained.
Parkland development
Cox explained that the parkland development fund consists of fees-in-lieu paid to the city during the platting process and they can be spent on maintenance, operations, acquisition and improvements to park facilities.
The revenue and expenditures for the parkland development fund are as follows:
• Revenue:
- $116,610 for adopted and amended FY 2026
- $148,362, including $31,752 in parkland development fees, for projected FY 2026
- $83,362 for proposed FY 2027
• Expenditures (includes transfer to Parks):
- $116,610 for adopted and amended FY 2026
- $65,000 for projected FY 2026
- $51,610 for proposed FY 2027
“What we did last year was we showed all of the money that was available in these funds going into the Parks department and then, the Parks board would look at their priority projects, bid those out and based on the funding availability, recommend those projects to council. So, that's what you see represented in [FY 20]26 adopted and amended; in projected, those are the actual projects that we've had come forward and so, that is what we intend to spend this year,” Cox presented.
Parkland dedication
The parkland dedication fund is used on improvements or acquisition in the city; it’s not used to maintain the park or go toward amenities.
Similar to that of the parkland development, this fund shows the same revenue amount for both the adopted and amended FY 2026 budget — as well as the projected — at $392,591 and $249,951, from fees, for FY 2027.
The expenses show $392,691 for adopted and amended FY 2026, $220,500 for projected and $172,191 for FY 2027.
Agriculture
The last fund that Cox presented was agriculture, which is limited to the funding of the acquisition, development, improvement and maintenance of community agriculture facilities. This is utilized at DSRP with the cattle, horses and any other number of agricultural programs that occur there.
According to budget documents, the total revenue and expenditures for projected FY 2026 — the only category listed for that fiscal year — are both listed at $156,800 and, for FY 2027, they are at $59,500.
“[A] little bit came in at the end of last year we weren't anticipating when we were doing the budget process, so that'll go out to DSRP this year and any revenues, again, we're anticipating collecting next year will also go towards the DSRP. There are enough, like I said, agricultural costs going out there that just about everything we receive we can send to DSRP,” Cox said. “Again, there are guidelines we look at in the ordinance to make sure it's being utilized correctly, but we haven't seen a deficiency in funding yet to go out there.”
Council will meet next Tuesday, July 21, for a special workshop to go over the Founders Day and Historic Preservation Commission budgets.
