Branson aldermen and finance committee hold special budget meeting

City Administrator Cathy Stepp said the focus of the budget was the same as previous years; the residents of the city and making sure the city can provide the most to the taxpayers for the least overall cost.

“[City staff] are highly esteemed professionals who have worked the last six months on putting this product in front of you tonight,” Stepp said. 

“They always work with careful consideration to keep the taxpayer in mind when we’re putting forth expenditures and doing our level best to provide the best return on investment.”

She cited the recent Board of Aldermen retreat as a key source of instruction from the aldermen when it came to the direction of the budget and items of importance to elected officials.

Stepp said the city would be looking to improve infrastructure in 2025, especially with water and sewer systems. She said they would be looking at ways to use bonding with the city’s tourism tax revenue versus cash funding all projects.

“We’re taking really good looks at how to make our money work smarter for us,” Stepp said.

The city will be taking a hard look at city codes and procedures in 2025 to try and get rid of as much red tape as possible and make doing business with the city easier for business owners and residents, according to Stepp.

The budget was prepared by Baker Tilly, the team of financial experts who has been working with the city for several years on financial matters.

Ben Hart of Baker Tilly provided the budget overview for the aldermen and committee members, and stated there were five major focus areas, several which carried over from the 2024 budget: increasing economic development and housing; increasing customer satisfaction when dealing with city government; implementation of capital projects for 2025; foster proactive engagement with the community; and making Branson “open for business.”

Hart said baseline assumptions about the city’s 2025 revenue were based on multiple factors, including a predicted a 1% increase in the city’s sales tax and other revenue, while also seeing a 1.5% decrease in tourism tax.

“These will continue to be modified during the budget process and during the year as we watch this on a monthly basis moving forward,” Hart said. 

He said he was optimistic the city’s sales tax would show good results through the end of 2024 and that will be carried over into 2025.

“Tourism tax is a different story,” Hart said. “We’ve had decreases in tourism tax every month this year. The tourism tax forecast for 2024 is going to come in better than we thought in June, but it’s still a negative.”

When comparing the 2024 budget to the proposed 2025 budget, there is a significant decrease in the overall budget. The fiscal year 2024 budget is standing at $177,226,852, while the budget proposed for 2025 is $138,882,124, a difference of $38,334,728, or a 28% decrease.

Hart said there was a reason for the significant decrease in the overall amount.

“That largely represents the capital we put out in 2024,” Hart said. “There’s a lot of capital in there. It also recognizes an unparalleled year when it comes to revenue in 2023 and 2024 when we started building up savings accounts. We can allocate that money, that capital.”

He said they were able to also strategically place funds in a long-term way to make sure city departments have ongoing funds to pay for the necessary staff to take care of the capital improvements and expansions within the city.

Hart laid out the 2025 predictions for revenue for the year, taxes were only covering about $74.7 million against the full budget. He broke down the taxes category for the budget, showing sales tax leads the way with just over $32 million, tourism tax at $17.7 million, and $18.85 million from CIDs/TIFs/TDDs. The budget also revealed the city would get an estimated $600,500 from marijuana taxes, which would go to police and fire budgets.

When looking long term at the city’s sales tax, the percentage of increase bouncing back from COVID-19 causing a 14.7% dip in 2020’s revenues has resulted in growth every year since, although Hart sees a leveling out taking place. He put the blame on general uncertainty about the economy.

“[There is] a tendency to spend less during election years,” Hart said. “There’s a lot of uncertainty…people are just holding on to their money. You also don’t know what’s going on with interest rates. A lot of people are putting up a lot of money in CDs and interest because they can make a lot of money. Heck, we did. The city made a lot of money on interest.”

The tourism fund breakdown showed a decrease of 1.6% for 2024, and the predicted 1.5% in 2025. Hart said they were taking a conservative approach with the revenue predictions.

“With everything going on in the economy and the world today, it’s easier to take a conservative approach, and react when we get [revenue,]” Hart said.

He showed a graph of the 2024 tax revenue compared to 2021-2023, and noted there was a decrease in July and August compared to previous years which has brought the overall revenue down, but they are estimating 2024’s revenue for the Ozark Mountain Christmas season will maintain 2023 levels.

In showing expenditures from 2024 compared to 2025, Hart broke down spending by category, which showed a significant decrease in major capital expenditures. The total for 2024 for major capital expenditures was $25.59 million, while 2025 is estimated to be around $8.925 million. Four of the seven categories presented showed overall decreases in expenditures, with only HR services, contractual obligations, and debt service showing higher expenditures in 2025.

Baker Tilly estimates the city is well over the 20% required fund level in the general fund’s balance, and fire is also well above their required number. The police department is still above their required level, but parks have dipped below the 10% fund balance.

After Baker Tilly’s presentation, all city departments then made budget presentations to the aldermen and committee focusing on 2024 accomplishments and goals for the upcoming year.

The proposed budget for the city overall and individual departments can be found on the city’s website, bransonmo.gov, and a recording of the over three hour budget meeting can be viewed on YouTube on the CityofBranson page.