City of LG Banking On Big Grant to Fund Several Projects

La Grange City Manager Jack Thompson presented an overview of next year’s budget to the City Council Monday night, Aug. 11.

“This year’s theme is ‘Planning Today, Shaping Tomorrow,’” Thompson said. “Last fiscal year, a lot of the items in our budget was to pay for plans and to begin the planning process on how we want to handle big items like our parks system, water system, streets, and really all those fronts. This fiscal year has been spent working on those plans, and we continue to work on them as we speak.”

Thompson said the City has applied for $26 million in low-interest, partially-forgivable loans from the Texas Water Board. If awarded, Thompson said the City would only have to repay $5 to $6 million.

“If we get those low-interest forgivable loans, those have a big impact on how we attack this coming year,” Thompson said. “We’ll be looking to replace a lot of our water and sewer systems. But that also impacts how we manage our streets, too, because the vast majority of our water and sewer system is under our streets. Right now, we’re at a bottleneck waiting to hear back if we got those loans.”

Thompson said the City will not budget a large amount of money next year toward capital improvement projects, such as replacing streets, until the City knows whether it will get those funds.

“It would be silly of us to reclaim all these streets only to tear them up again to put in water and wastewater,” he said.

Other big upcoming projects include facility improvements for City Hall, the Randolph Rec Center and Police Department, along with infrastructure improvements on the north end of town and downtown.

“With all of those various moving parts, this puts us in a mode to wait and see how some of this shakes out,” Thompson said. “We’ll have to figure out how to pay for it all. Its going to be a process. For us this year its a lot of planning. But that doesn’t mean we’re not moving forward.”

Next year’s budget will also increase spending for administrative services. Part of that, Thompson said, would be used to implement a unified development code.

“What that consists of is a subdivision ordinance update, design standards, development processes – getting those realigned,” he said. “Our subdivision ordinance is from 1987, so that needs to be updated. It’s an expensive and very in-depth process. But it’s a process we really need to undertake. Right now we really need to have some design standards, so that when it does occur, we can require developers to put in certain street specifications and things like that, which we don’t currently have.”

Thompson said spending in the general fund for next year stands at $6,102,637. In the utility fund, the City plans to spend $11,458,529. Payments on outstanding debt will amount to 439,628. That brings total budgeted spending to $18,000,794.

Just a little over $1 million in the City’s revenue will come from property taxes next year. The Council proposed a property tax rate of $0.18194 per $100 of taxable value. That’s the voter approval rate, which is the highest rate the Council could set it without calling an election. It will increase taxes by $76,293 over last year, or about 8.2 percent. Of that amount, $17,798 is tax revenue generated by new property added to the tax roll this year.

Interestingly, the average home value in La Grange decreased this year, from $308,388 in 2024 to $306,517 in 2025, according to figures from the Fayette County Appraisal District. The vast majority of the City’s revenue comes from sales tax and fees for services, especially utilities.

Also at Monday’s meeting, La Grange VFW Post #5254 Commander Richard Gray again spoke during the public comment period about the poor condition of the La Grange VFW Hall, which is owned by the City. Gray addressed the Council about the problems at the Hall two weeks ago. He thanked the City for purchasing a new refrigerator and restroom supplies since the last time he spoke. However, he said the VFW Post sent the City an email back on June 4 outlining 21 areas of concern.

“The City has not been very responsive to our needs for reasons unknown to us,” he said.

Gray said no one from the City has contacted the Post about their concerns.

“I would like someone to walk through (the building) with me so we can address these issues and get some things going,” Gray said.

Earlier in the meeting, during the budget discussion, Councilwoman Violet Zbranek asked Thompson whether the new budget includes any funding for the VFW Hall.

“That falls under parks building and maintenance, and we did increase that account, so we could put more money in repairs,” Thompson said.

Thompson said the building needs about $250,000 in repairs.

“Maybe there are some things we can do ahead of time and some for next year, but we can at least start,” Zbranek said.