City adopts fiscal year ‘26 budget

It is hands down the most consequential action taken by the city council each year and yet it often happens without much in the way of public comment.

That “it” would be the passage of the annual city budget, which the council passed last week with little discussion in a meeting that was mostly focused on changes to city code that make it a misdemeanor to sleep, camp or store personal property in a public place as well as discussions about possible changes to parking and sidewalks along Nevada Way.

The actual passage is really the end of an extended process that began publicly in March but that had been going on behind the scenes before that.

The headline news is that the amount the city plans to spend from the General Fund in the 2026 fiscal year actually went down by more than 6% when compared to the fiscal year 2025 budget. The 2025 budget year comes to a close on June 30.

City budgets going down is not something you hear about every day. So what drove that in the case of Boulder City?

The city is unique among jurisdictions in the region in that it can’t — per the city charter — easily take on debt. If, for example, Henderson found they were coming up a little short in revenue, their leadership could vote to issue municipal bonds to cover the shortfall. BC can’t do that for an amount more than $1 million without taking it to a vote of residents. Per city staff, the budget is very conservative as a result of that restriction on debt.

What drove the need to cut back? It’s all about revenue.

Last year, revenue to the general fund was estimated at $49.7 million and the initial estimate for 2026 is down to about $46.2 million. Before any of the proposed (and now passed) budget was made public, department directors were asked to trim their budget ask to keep it in line with revenues.

“Department directors took a unique role in building the $46.8 million budget,” the city said in a statement. “They met as a team to discuss what each department needed and how to trim expenses to ensure direct services would remain unaffected.”

The vast majority — more than 80% — of the general fund budget goes to pay salary and benefits for city employees.

Public safety (fire department, police department, dispatch and animal control) accounts for the largest portion of the annual budget at $18.7 million – slightly more than 40% of the city’s operating budget.

“Keeping our community safe is a priority to this council, to me, and to our 15,000 residents,” said City Manager Ned Thomas. “We are fortunate that Boulder City has been able to effectively recruit first responders at a time when other communities struggle to hire new staff.”

Thomas is actually rounding up on that 15,000 population figure. It is actually a little north of 14,800, which is down from almost 15,000 last year. And that only tells part of the story. Actual full-time, year-round residents come in closer to 11,000 and that figure has been falling for years.

With a decreasing, aging population and a corresponding drop in property tax revenue, a reason Boulder City stays in pretty good shape budget-wise is lease revenue that mostly comes from energy generation (and maybe soon to include energy storage) in the Eldorado Valley.

City Council held a special meeting in April, and staff led a workshop with residents to present the draft budget as well. “The Finance Department staff is committed to budgeting for the future and advancing the long-term fiscal health of our city government, ” said Cynthia Sneed. “We work to balance our budget, maintain the level of services residents and visitors expect, and work to reduce volatility in our future budgets. I’m proud of this team and its efforts.”

The current property tax rate for Boulder City residents continues to be one of the lowest in the state at $0.2600 per $100 assessed value (so for every $1,000 valuation, homeowners pay $26.10 in property taxes). This compares with $0.7408 for Henderson, $1.0515 for Las Vegas, and $1.1587 for North Las Vegas.

The approved budget adds one full-time employee over last year: the fleet supervisor, which is expected to provide savings as more work can be completed on site, instead of contracted.

There may still be changes coming. As noted before, the vast majority of the money goes to salary and benefits and a large portion of city workers are covered under collective bargaining agreements from several unions. However, at the time the budget was adopted, the city had only come to terms with one of those unions.

Check out the entire 2025-2026 budget online at www.bcnv.org/budget.