About City of Tyler
We also maintain the lowest property tax rate in the state among communities with populations over 15,000. Our rate of 20.4 cents is less than one-third that of other cities such as Waco with a rate of 78 cents or Denton with 66 cents per $100 valuation.
Some of our strongest industries also position Tyler well. We are a college town with 17,000 students – more... between UT, TJC and Texas College. These students bring tremendous buying power to our community.
Tyler has also become a health care destination point because of our exemplary medical community.
The historically quiet tourism industry is becoming a major force in the economy with year to date hotel motel tax returns at an all time high.
We are also attracting federal investment with the announcement of plans to build a National Guard armory and a veteran’s nursing home in Tyler.
Since making major cuts in staffing in the mid 90’s as part of the roll out of the Blueprint plan, City staffing has remained lean. The City has about the same number of regular full-time employees we had in 1984; however our population has grown by 37%.
If you are not familiar with the Blueprint, we have a small tri-fold on your table that explains this approach to municipal management. The Blueprint goals to SERVE, (streamline, empower, respond, venture and evaluate), have been at the center of HOW the City conducts business for the last several years. With a core value of placing the highest premium on being responsive to citizen’s needs â€" this plan has served us well and enabled us to be positioned for these tough times.
As our next step in reaching our goal to SERVE, the City has recently announced plans to launch a Lean Sigma program throughout City government. By using principles of both LEAN and SIX SIGMA that have been historically used by private enterprise, the City will further enhance its ability to improve quality and efficiency.
We have taken several other proactive steps to ensure we continue to weather this economic storm. We have started our annual budget process several months early, to ensure we thoroughly explore any opportunity to cut costs and provide better services. We have developed a three year forecast so that we can better predict future expenses; We have frozen several positions and are reviewing each vacancy on a case by case basis to see if it can be kept vacant on a temporary basis to cut costs. Therefore, we are asking our workforce to do more with less â€" just like most of you are doing in your own businesses. We also have suspended all out of state training and certifications and are monitoring our expenditures closely.
We have asked each department leader to look for opportunities to further streamline their operations. Consequently, we have identified opportunities that we are already piloting. Examples include outsourcing parks maintenance and changing the way refuse is collected.
We are adjusting our five-year half cent project plan pursuant to updated cash flow projections.
Throughout the last year, there have been too many shining moments to list today. However, first and foremost, this community must celebrate the success of the first year of implementation of the Tyler 21 plan. If the Blueprint is HOW the City does business, the Tyler 21 plan is WHAT we are doing. It is our vision for the future.
Significant progress was made on more than 50% of the action items in this 20 year plan! Let’s take a look at a few examples of what has been accomplished. – less – More from ZoomInfo »
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