Residents of Garland will not have to worry about a tax increase going into the 2026-27 fiscal year, as the town reversed course on potentially raising the tax rate by two cents. There will be an increase on garbage fees across the board, however.
In its second budget meeting Monday, the town board continued their work on the proposed budget. One of the proposals made was to keep the tax rate at 48 cents per $100 valuation, after previously exploring the idea at last month’s workshop to increase it to 50 cents. The general fund for this year’s purposed budget for the town of Garland is projected to be $672,731.
“I have a big wish list that I would love to see the town have,” Garland Mayor Ralph Smith Jr. said. “Truth of the matter is, there’s only so much to spread around. The big thing is, everything’s going up. I realize people go to the grocery store and they go to the gas station , and we’re trying to reduce our part of the burden on them by having to spend more money out of their household income. We have a wish list that we’re not gonna be able to fill this year, but we’re gonna make it work. We still got a lot of good things coming. Our tax base is growing, and as it grows, that will help a whole lot. This year we’ve seen pretty substantial growth in it.”
The town board also proposed that in-town residents see an increase in garbage fees, from $13 to $14, out-of-town residents would go from $45 to $50 every three months, and commercial businesses within the town are proposed to rise from $14 to $15.
“We’ve got a little bit of a trash problem, but that’s due to the increase in fuel prices,” Smith explained regarding a few adjustments the town made for the proposed budget. “Everybody in the country’s having the same problem with tariffs, and a lot of the stuff we use is tariff-affected, but fuel is the biggest thing right now. Fuel is making everything go up. Our chemicals have gone up three times in six months, and when I say three times, I mean they’ve tripled in three months. So we’re having to make some adjustments on that, but the budget is pretty sound and we’re not having to go up on tax.”
Town officials decided to keep the cost of living raise for themselves instead of a proposed increase. They did, however, propose a three percent increase for town employees. These, along with potentially leaving a proposed water sonar off the budget, were some of the other notable decisions thrown around during the second workshop.
“Those sonars we want, we haven’t completely ruled it out, but we just haven’t so far in the budget found the money for it,” Smith noted. “We’re holding the line on salaries; we’re going to try to get a cost-of-living raise. We have great employees, I wish we could triple their pay, but we just don’t have it in the budget. There was some consideration of commissioner pay raises. Of course, we knocked that in the head (said no to), which I’m glad. I made a statement (during the workshop) that I think it’s like an 88 to 87.9 percent raise, which is true. It sounds a lot higher than it actually is, because it’s not that much money to begin with. The truth of the matter is, I, for one, am not on here (as Mayor) to collect a check. I’m on here to do what I can do for the town. I think the majority of the board is like that; all of the board is like that. It was something they were just tossing around to bring the pay back up to where it used to be. In the long run, we decided to leave it where it was, because it would have been hard. I’m glad they went along with that idea and recommendation. That was a good move.”
Money allocated for election costs was moved to other areas to fund a total of $4,500. This was due to a placement mistake, as there’s no election going into the 2026-27 fiscal year for the town.
“We put it in last year’s (budget) and it got put in by mistake this year, but we got it straightened out,” Smith explained. “We stuck it in the budget to cover the cost of an election, but we don’t have one this year, so we can pull that back out. We’re gonna put that in our different funds to try to shape Garland up and make it look better. We’ll help out with some things we got planned for this year, and that’ll work out pretty good.”
Overall, Smith acknowledged that he felt good about the second workshop, even opening up the meeting live to those on their Facebook page to be able to comment on the meeting as they were working during the workshop.
“We’ve opened up the comments on Facebook, they can say what they want to say,” the Mayor said emphatically, “I’ll be answering each and every one of you on the next few days, I’ve got something planned for that. We’ll go from there. Be easy on us, we’re trying real hard and we’re doing the best we can on a tight shoestring budget. I’m looking forward to seeing how that goes myself, I really am,” he concluded with a chuckle.
The town board will hold a public hearing on the budget Monday, June 9; they are expected to approve it following that hearing.