Brownwood Mayor Stephen Haynes began his State of the City online series Monday by addressing economic indicators.

Haynes noted that due to COVID-19, the City of Brownwood’s budget was reduced for the first time in 21 years. Also, the tax rate was reduced to its lowest rate since 1996. The budget also features no increases in any fees such as water or sanitation rates.

“We know people are hurting and struggling through this crisis but we want you to know we are doing what we can at the city to control spending and to control our expenditures,” Haynes said.

Sales tax numbers in 2020 actually increased for the third year in row, totaling $7,710,751 which was up from $7,600,951 in 2019.

“That’s a high water mark for the City of Brownwood and a 2 percent increase,” Haynes said. “A couple of things we can attribute that success to is, first of all, people stayed at home and didn’t travel as much so more dollars were spent locally. This shows you the power of having that local sales tax stay within our community. The second thing we think it shows is the power of visitor spending. When we travel to other places and spend our sales tax dollars in the Metroplex or Austin they collect the benefit of that sales tax. If we can, out of the post COVID-19 crisis, attract visitors to our community that will help us continue to increase that sales tax.”

The unemployment rate in Brown County spiked at around 10 percent in April and May, but that fell well below the state and national rates of 15 percent. After a slow decline, the month of September featured a bump back up to 7.5 percent, which Haynes attributed to an increase in COVID cases. Unemployment numbers have again been on the decline since September.

Building valuation in 2020 totaled $11,866,251, up a tad from $11,798,065 in 2019.

“That’s a slight increase and in light of everything that went on in our community, those are very strong annual building valuation numbers,” Haynes said.

The number of new businesses in 2020 was 27 – matching the most sine 2012, and four more than the 23 in 2019.

“That’s not a substantial change but to be opening new businesses and having entrepreneurs build our business economy in such a difficult time is a positive for our community,” Haynes said.

Residential sales in 2020 totaled 488 with a sales volume of $97,289,257, a sizable increase from the 409 sales and $65,924,158 sales volume for 2019.

“The real estate market was very strong in a very difficult year,” Hayes said, citing low interest rates and the governmental stimulus as potential reasons for the growth.

The Brownwood Municipal Development District invested $143,281 in local businesses, then those business put $762,785 in private investments back into the local economy. In 2019, the BMDD invested $166,323 which resulted in $559,492 in private investments.

“We’re very proud of that number and very proud of that program,” Haynes said. “Again we need to help local entrepreneurs to succeed and we think the strong performance of the BMDD over the last several years has led to a rejuvenation of downtown and an interest in starting new businesses in our new community.”

The next segment in the series will focus on what is on the horizon for Brownwood.

For more information visit www.brownwoodtexas.gov/SOTC