The City Council of Killeen held a workshop on February 23, 2026, at 12:00 PM in the Utility Collections Conference Room to receive input and discuss priorities for the Fiscal Year 2027 budget. No votes, motions, or formal decisions were taken; the meeting was designed for discussion and staff presentations. Staff presented the results of the 2025 citizen survey, summarized the city’s accomplishments over the past year, and provided a financial forecast showing a tight budget outlook, partly due to the state-required disabled veteran (DV) property tax exemption. Council members offered a range of priorities and suggestions for the upcoming budget cycle.
We will hear from staff and we are also going to open up with citizens' comments today. There will be no decisions, votes, or motions of direction taken during this gathering. So we're gonna first allow there any citizens signed up or open to make comments. All right, seeing none, uh, we'll move forward to style presentation starting with Mr. Cagle. Yes, sir, thank you, Mayor. Uh, we got a couple of presentations. One, we wanted to start off and kind of go back a year where we were year ago today, and where some of our resources were placed, and we put it in context of the citizen survey that we didn't get really a chance to say this at that meeting when it was presented, but we anticipated. I think all of you, the council staff anticipated um a lot of those scores and where we knew we would do poorly, and that's where our money was being put last year. And we we want to go through that and show you, and then we'll talk about some uh financials for the um for the upcoming year. And then we can have some discussion. I think what we would have done if we had had a quorum, then we would have maybe gotten some motions of direction or something, but we can discuss later if we want to reconvene this and do this again. But everybody's here, and we we've got uh a lot of good information for you. And so uh Miss Wilson will do the first one, and then I'll I'll do the financial one. All right, well, thank you. Well, as Mr. Cagle said, we're gonna start by talking a little bit about our citizen survey. Uh, as you'll recall, the citizen survey is completed about every two years by an outside professional entity, the ETC institute. Uh, this was the third survey that we completed, and it was conducted in July of 2025 with a representative sample. Well, our goal was to collect 500 surveys, 545 were collected with about a 95% confidence level. Um so we did get some positive feedback in that survey. Our citizens gave us high marks on fire department services, professionalism, customer service, emergency response, and ambulance services. We also received positive feedback related to trash and water services, and scores increased from the last survey for water, police, golf, and our airport facilities. Um there are also a number of items where we can see some improvements. Um citizens would like to see improvements related to street maintenance, street lighting, code enforcement, police services, specifically noting an increased presence in the downtown area. And they would also like to see improvements to parks and recreation related to conveniently located parks, quality athletic fields, a variety of park amenities, and quality of recreation classes and programs. Additionally, an adequate forum for public input, more entertainment options, and supermarkets were requested. The survey also had a great section that specifically asked residents for their priorities related to investment. Street maintenance was listed and code enforcement, prioritizing high grass and weeds, property cleanliness, illegal dumping, junk vehicles, abandoned buildings, and illegally operating a business in a residential zone. For police services, crime prevention was included, as well as a focus on community policing, traffic enforcement, and response time. And additionally, city youth programs for cycling and ambulance services were also mentioned. So we had a number of incredible accomplishments last year. So last year we expanded the intergovernmental services agreement with Fort Hood for Clean Regional, giving the airport an increased revenue source while also saving the Army money. A backup generator was added at Belton Water Treatment Plan at protecting area resources, and I believe this was a grant funded project. We also added a second hangar at GRK, serving as another source of revenue and expanding our operations. And the real-time crime center launched. And as you'll recall, this was financially supported mostly by seizure funds and was a huge lift from PD and IT to keep our community and officers safe while also better utilizing our staff. And Chief, if I recall, we're one of the first four cities in Texas to have something similar. Yes. That's wonderful. And then we also completed a phase of the sanitary sewer evaluation survey, giving us an achievable work plan to improve our critical infrastructure. We also added solar covered parking at GRK, which was 90% grant funded, and reducing our operational costs through electricity savings and providing an enhanced amenity for our guests. It's a state-of-the-art facility heavily funded through ARPA money to better serve a growing side of town and offer a centralized emergency operations center to improve our ability to react and respond to disasters. Additionally, four variable frequency drives were replaced at Lift Station 2, which was rebuilt last year. Continuing our critical infrastructure maintenance, we replaced three split case pumps at Pump Station 5, replaced the long branch pool house on the north side of Colleen, offering improved working conditions for staff, and enhancing guest experience. We completed phase one of our waterline rehab project, protecting our critical critical infrastructure. And we're excited to welcome Dave and Busters to Anthem Park, a beautiful new entertainment option for residents and our visitors. A brand new pump station on Chaparral was constructed, allowing us to better serve and support residential growth. And we replaced two pumps with submersible chopper pumps at Lift Station 20, which will help us better manage additional debris coming through the system, preventing added maintenance. And our first two major parks and recreation facility naming sponsorships were acquired at the Family Aquatics Center and Family Recreation Center, resulting in a city profit of up to 1.3 million dollars.