Denton City Council members tonight will consider a $414.7 million budget for fiscal year 2007-08 that includes more money for drainage projects and the equivalent of 27.5 new full-time positions.

Council members also are expected to approve a 6.4 percent property tax rate increase, allowing the city to pay off bond debt and increase spending on drainage upgrades following major citywide flooding this spring.

The tax rate increase has drawn little opposition, but members of the Southeast Denton community have criticized the budget for not including a full-time manager for the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center on Wilson Street.

The center had its own manager until 2005, when the council cut the position and about 50 other city jobs to help balance the budget.

Today, one manager splits time between the King and Denia recreation centers, and city officials have said they believe the centers are sufficiently staffed.

Residents packed an Aug. 21 council meeting asking for another manager position to focus full time on the King center. They also urged the council to promote a longtime employee, recreation specialist Bobby Givens, to the job, saying he was qualified but had been passed over for promotion in the past.

Reached by phone Monday, Givens declined to comment.

City Manager George Campbell said he was still studying the request for the additional manager position and would brief council members on its financial impact before they approved the budget. The spending plan takes effect Oct. 1.

“It just depends on whether or not they bring it up and want to do anything on it,” Campbell said. “It’s not in the budget at this point.”

The tax rate would rise 4 cents per $100 valuation, from 62.65 cents to 66.65 cents. The annual tax bill for the city’s average $136,546 home – including a $5,000 homestead exemption – would increase by $91.16, according to the city.

Of the tax rate increase, 3 cents per $100 valuation would go to pay off debt associated with bond projects voters approved in 2005, officials have said. The other penny would allow the sale of about $7 million in bonds to pay for new drainage projects, according to the city.

General fund spending would rise 7.1 percent, from $76.9 million this fiscal year to $82.37 million in 2007-08.

Increases in the rates for water (3 percent) and single-family residential recycling (50 cents a month) also are proposed.

A third assistant city manager would be the highest-ranking new hire authorized. Other new full-time positions would include five in the police department, three in building inspections, and two each in code enforcement, planning and parks maintenance.

LOWELL BROWN can be reached at 940-566-6882. His e-mail address is lmbrown@dentonrc.com .