Council discusses upcoming, ongoing department projects
The city of Graham discussed their upcoming and ongoing projects Thursday during their first 2021-2022 budget meeting. The city department projects will have $4.8 million in grant funding, with $1.2 million in earmarked funding and approximately $250,674 used from city tax dollars.
City Manager Brandon Anderson presented the list of projects Thursday to the council which were upcoming and ongoing with their associated costs and funding from each city department.
“So total in the general fund either ongoing or upcoming projects (are) $4,837,674 of which are earmarked funds, or already dedicated funds, would pay for $1,207,000 and so out of our general fund the only money that we would be paying out of tax dollars would be $250,674,” Anderson said.
City parks projects
The city of Graham received $1.3 million from the Brazos River Authority for parks improvement projects in June 2018. The money was received to turn the floodplain along Salt Creek into a park for the city with a waiver of liability to the BRA. A 2018 Parks Master Plan was created detailing the parks and potential improvements to each after polling was done on social media to gauge interest in different aspects of the park project and to help build information for the grant application process to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
The city was awarded matching grant funding from TPWD in May after a decision was made by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission. The city applied for a recreation trails and local park grant through the department to extend the scope of the existing money received from the BRA in 2018.
During the meeting Thursday, it was announced that phase one of the parks project and the trails project are estimated to begin in Spring 2022 while phase two of the parks project and the trails project are estimated to begin in Spring 2024. Phase one of the parks project is estimated to have $900,000 covered by the TPWD grant and $450,000 by BRA funding. Phase two of the parks project is estimated to have $1,000,000 covered by the TPWD grant and $500,000 by BRA funding. The two trails grants will have $200,000 covered by the TPWD grant and $20,000 by BRA funding in 2022 and 2024.
“You can see that those are pretty substantial amounts. We hope we continue to get the grants from (Texas) Parks and Wildlife (Department). The first two have already been achieved so that trigger has already been pulled. We feel like that typically when you get funded with parks and wildlife they usually continue (for) at least two years. We are hoping (for) three (years) so we can make phase three, but I have only got the first two phases on there,” Anderson said. “So the total cost, half of that, is going to be paid by parks and wildlife. The other half are out of the earmarked funds from the BRA land buyout that can only be spent back in that park area.”
For the rest of the story, see the July 14 edition of The Graham Leader.
