Beaumont City Council to begin budgeting

Council chambers

CBS6 KFDM
by Sydney Ferguson
Tue, May 23rd 2023, 12:22 PM GMT-7

BEAUMONT — Beaumont City Council is beginning to work on its budget. According to Kenneth Williams, Beaumont City Manager, this starts with looking at what they already have.

"We want to look at our dollars, the dollars that have been spent over the last few years and what we're projecting to have at the end of this year and take that amount and go forward and project dollars for next year," said Williams.

Although the budget is in the beginning stages, city officials are already placing emphasis on infrastructure and public safety.

"People have been wanting to make sure they have a solid infrastructure system. They want to make sure they have a solid sewer system, solid water system, good roads to drive on and, of course, be safe in a safe environment," said Williams.

Mayor Roy West would like to see more youth initiatives and updates the public has requested to city parks, but he says that starts with council.

"I want to see what we can do to help with that, but again, it's got to be a council process in discussing it and I know this is something that is important to a lot of the community so I know we're going to have deep dives into all those topics," said West.

The first workshop will be held on Tuesday at Tyrell Park at 9 AM. Here, city officials will discuss what they want to see and begin work on a five year plan for Beaumont.

"There's always problems and you can't correct them all in one year so there have ben multi-year plans, but it's how to speed that up, how to create efficiencies with that," said West.

Williams says there can be three to five workshops depending on how well budgeting goes.

"There's so many issues that we want to be touching and all of them are important and I believe we we're going to find ways to carve out to get there but it's just going to be -- it's beginning a new journey," said West.

A journey to an improved city.