City asking to hire broker to sell surplus property

The Huntsville Item
Brenda Poe | editor@itemonline.com
September 4, 2023

There are 16 city-owned properties up for sale if the Huntsville City Council passes the consent agenda, which asks councilmembers to authorize the City Manager to hire a real estate broker to sell surplus city-owned tracts of real property.

According to Assistant City Manager Sam Masiel, the strategic plan initiates projects to address issues within the city.

One of the Economic Development initiatives is to complete an updated inventory and review City properties available for sale/development/incentive offering.

“Staff compiled property data from the Walker County Appraisal District to develop a full listing of city-owned properties. Multiple departments assisted in reviewing the properties to determine the usefulness of each location,” Masiel wrote in his agenda item.

“Upon review, only a small number of properties were identified to sell that cannot be utilized by the city.”

The City of Huntsville is allowed to sell property in accordance with Local Government Code, which can be done by public auction (LGC 253), notice and bidding (LGC 272) or use of a broker (home-ruled cities).

If approved by Council, staff will solicit proposals for broker services and proceed with selling the properties in accordance with the state law requirements.

Those properties include:

906 AVE C

3138 WINDING WAY

920 OLD MADISONVILLE RD

2533A SAM HOUSTON AVE

313 HELEN ST

309 HELEN ST

305 HELEN ST

312 SH 30 E

314 SH 30 E

930 MARTIN LUTHER KING JR DR

721 AVE G

820 RYANS FERRY RD

421 7TH ST

436 SAM HOUSTON AVE

301 SH 75 N

930A MARTIN LUTHER KING JR DR

In other business, the council will host a public hearing on the proposed budget for FY 2023-24. As required by LGC Sec. 102.2005 (b), it is stated that the budget will raise more total property taxes than last year’s budget by $1,004,600, or 12.49%, and of that amount, $308,600 or 3.84%, is tax revenue to be raised from new property added to the tax roll this year.

Aron Kulhavy, City Manager, opened the budget with a letter to Council.

“Although the fund balance was used in some instances, each fund is balanced in this budget per the requirements of the City Charter and the adopted fiscal policies and procedures,” Kulhavy wrote. “The past fiscal year has been challenging, but we continue to remain in a strong fiscal position. In the past fiscal year, we continued to see strong sales tax revenue and growth; however, in accommodating the growth and investment the cost to provide services has increased in several areas. Electricity, chemical supplies, some construction costs, water plant operations all rose significantly resulting in a higher cost to maintain the level of service provided in the current fiscal year. There are the addition of new facilities coming on-line with the beginning of the 23-24 fiscal year with funds allocated to address their operations and maintenance. We have also faced challenges with maintaining competitive wages and are attempting to address this for the recruitment and retention of quality employees to serve our citizens.”

Kulhavy added that this year’s budget shows total revenues of $87,400,371 and total expenditures of $91,695,905. In comparison to last year’s adopted budget, the revenues are up by 8.67%, and expenses, including one time use of unallocated reserves, are up by 12.27%. The fund balances remain healthy and above the 25% minimum as required per policy in the general, utility, and solid waste funds.

The projected balance in the general fund at the end of the 23-24 fiscal year (FY) is approximately, $9.343 million, which as of the date of this letter is $1,081 million more than the 25% reserve requirement.

The utility fund is projected to have a $8.274 million balance, $879,000 over the $7.4 million required reserve.

The solid waste fund is expected to end the 23-24 year with a reserve fund of $3.621 million which is in excess of the policy minimum requirement of $1.910 million by $1.711 million.”

To read the full budget and City Manager’s budget message, log on to www.HuntsvilleTX.gov