Commissioners Court - Regular Meeting

Good morning again. This regular session of Commissioner's Court for Comel County, Thursday, August 6, is called to order at 8.30 AM. Let the record reflect that all members are present this morning, so there is a quorum. And we'll begin with action agenda item number one, approved claims.

Judge, I move to approve the claims as presented for August the 6th, 2026. EFTs $227,362.48. Regular claims of $1,094,480.58 for a total of $1,321,843.06. Second.

We have a motion by Commissioner Hogg with a second by Commissioner Leacock to approve action agenda item number one. Any discussion? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries. We'll move into our workshop agenda. We'll begin with item one, citizens' comments. Public comments may address items of public interest and concern or a specific agenda item and are limited to three minutes per person. Is there anyone here this morning who wishes to address the court? We'll move into workshop agenda item number two, reports by county staff and elected officials on items of community interest.

I think we've got one for the animal control folks.

Good morning.

Good morning, Commissioners. I got good news for the county. I've been trying to do this for quite some time now, and I was finally able to receive a grant from Best Friends. And so on August 22nd, we will have a free rabies clinic out in the JP1 parking lot for the first 300 verified Commonwealth County residents to get a free rabies shot for their dog and or cat. Good job.

Thank you.

Congratulations. Awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Thanks. Any other reports? Go right into item number three. County judge presents 2027 proposed budget to commissioner's court. So before I get into what we're all here to see this morning, I wanted to be sure that I thanked the people, the county partners, and the special people that helped make this all happen and got us where we are here this morning. The number of moving parts, the timelines, there's so much to this that the average person doesn't see. And so I just wanted to acknowledge Vicky Dorsett. I don't think she's here. Vicky was the temporary budget administrator. She's been helping us along. She brought her 20 years of experience from Hays County, and she's been a blessing to have. in this very important process and transition. Certainly we don't get to this day without our HR director, Jerry, our new auditor, Michelle, and your team, our tax office team, thank you all for being here, Connie Rose with MVBA, our legal team, our purchasing director, IT director. It takes all of these departments, including all of our other county departments, to participate in this really critical process. So thank you all. We'll get into it. We'll begin with this slide here. This year, the no new revenue rate was calculated at 0.294552. The voter approval rate was calculated at 0.308097. And you can see that in the bottom corner. The recommended budget proposes the same tax rate as last year, which is 0.305015. And this schedule shows you what that tax rate would generate. And to the far right of the screen is $111,821,566. So what all does that mean? When I say the no new revenue rate, The no new revenue rate can be misleading. The no new revenue rate under the tax code and Texas law traditionally is intended to generate the same total dollar amount of property tax revenue as the previous year. The voter approval rate, of course, is the highest possible tax rate that we could adopt, but that would trigger an immediate election by the local voters. Putting the proposed tax rate in between does not require a vote. And it is just slightly, as you can tell, just slightly above the no new revenue rate. One thing I wanted to talk about this morning is when I say the no new revenue rate is misleading, There are lots of things that happen on these worksheets that we calculate every year. And one of those in particular explains how there is a loss of taxable value, in particular this year, due to new exemptions required by the state. As you may have voted or know about, there was a property tax exemption passed in last session, Senate Bill 9. Not to get too much into the weeds, but what that did is it actually, our taxable value from last year is not the same as it was this year. besides the new value. And so it creates a problem where the no new revenue rate is really not the no new revenue rate for us here in Comal County this year. So I have worked on this budget, and in order to fund this budget, I feel that the proposed tax rate of last year, the 305015, is is a conservative, conscious decision that will put us in and maintain us in a good position for the future and fund a lot as we'll go through, but also addresses that concern where that lost value from last year. This is a chart showing just the basic differences on the revenues. Another challenge we experienced this year was an increase in sales tax that was unexpected. We had a significant increase in sales tax, but it does appear to be a one-time influx of sales tax. And so back to these beautiful worksheets from the Comptroller, when you have an influx in sales tax, it does mess with your tax rate calculations. And so that is clearly displayed here on our revenues chart. For expenditures, This slide shows that additional revenue being spent. I'll go through what those expenses will be. But that does include and shows, if you look at the bottom, it shows the $213 million as a total for expenditures. And a lot of that will be, $21.3 million will be used from reserves to cover a great portion of that increase. The chart shows just the breakdown by function, the budget. In some of these items, justice system, corrections and rehabilitation, those actually do include those items, those capital items that I am proposing that we use from reserves. But that's just a quick visual to show you really what we're prioritizing and expending in Comal County. So what is included? So I am proposing that we have a 4% COLA. And it's actually not a pay scale advancement, so I apologize on that. It is a 4% COLA. And that is for all county employees and elected officials. That is to help improve retention and to also keep up with the competitive increase in the workforce market. We had a handful of new positions and reclassifications. And I'll talk a little bit about the 2% salary adjustment for law enforcement. So here's a little bit more detail on those. $3.5 million is included for the 4% COLA. And again, that's all current and new positions, including law enforcement and elected officials. That, again, is intended for retention and competitiveness. $657,000 is included for a 2% targeted adjustment to current law enforcement positions. This is designed to be an interim measure. We recognize that we need to continue to review and look at our law enforcement pay charts. And so this will be a 2% applied to... all of those involved with the law enforcement pay chart. So that is deputies, investigators from the DA's office, constables, deputies, dispatch, jail. And then lastly, as presented a couple of weeks ago by Ms. Hettinger with HR, we did approve the increase from $100 to $200 on the rebate for the return of dollars towards health insurance. Additionally, it's been 10 years and a lot of research and studying. And thanks to folks here on the court, I am proposing a $164,000 expense for a 3% COLA for retirees. And so one thing I do want to note about the COLAs, especially the retirees, and some of these personnel changes that we're making this year, this year we were able to do it. I don't know, based on what I explained earlier, and if you looked at the rates and how close they are, I don't know. We don't know what we're going to be able to do in the future. And so I want to... I'm grateful that I'm able to propose this this year. I just don't know what that's going to look like in the future. So new positions, reclassifications. We had a handful of requests. This budget includes 30 new positions. That would include covering staff for the 511th District Court. We have nine positions from the sheriff's office that will be SROs for Comal ISD. And that is a 75-25 split. So we do account for that revenue coming back in from those employees. We also have created or I'm proposing that we support an intake team for the district attorney. We also have a couple of administrative roles, road workers, parks director, and additional courthouse security positions that would help also support the 511th District Court. There were a handful of requests to provide equity among our courts for our court administrators. And so you'll see that on the next chart. And there were a handful of other reclassifications that I was able to get into this budget. And here those are broken down. You can take a look, and it does break out the expense, again, of that COLA, 4%, the retirees. And then it breaks down the new positions and the reclassifications. This is just a report, again, that summarizes the capital and non-capital and technology. We saw this before on the requested budget presentation. This is a highlight of what those costs are. And as a highlight of those items, we have a lot of vehicles. I mean, I say a lot. I think 29. So a lot of those are law enforcement vehicles, road department, emergency management, supporting facilities and purchasing, again, computers, funding for the phone system. And then on the capital projects, as I mentioned, the use of reserves, the $23 million, What we have been able to do with this budget and with this proposed tax rate is take care of the jail facility design through our reserves. The construction is factored into the debt, into our tax rate. Also, the use of reserves would go to help fund the tax office renovation, as well as the precinct for building in Siler, among a few other things. So overall, that is my presentation. We will have a public hearing on this budget on Thursday, August 20 in the same room, same time. And we will hopefully vote and get a budget adopted at that time. Do you have any questions for me? OK. So we'll move back into our action agenda. Item number two is discuss and consider the proposed 2026 tax rate and set dates for public hearings. So this is just restating. We will hold our budget hearing on August 20th at 8.30 AM. Commissioner's courtroom, 100 Main Plaza, New Braunfels, to a vote to adopt the budget. The vote to adopt the budget will be taken at this time. And this statement here, the budget will raise more than total property taxes in last year's budget by $1,865,874, or 1.7%, Of that amount, $3,981,210 is tax revenue to be raised from new property and added to the tax roll this year.

Judge, I move that the court consider and take action on a proposed 2026 tax rate of .305015 per $100 valuation at the regular meeting on Thursday, August 20th. and to set a public hearing of the adopted proposed tax rate at the regular Commissioner's Court meeting on Thursday, September 3, 2026, at 8.30 a.m. Second.

There's a motion to consider the proposed 2026 tax rate to take action at a public hearing To set the public hearing date for Thursday, August 20th. And to public hearing of the adopted proposed tax rate at the regular commissioner's court meeting on Thursday, September 3rd, 2026. I'm sorry.

Judge, and the motion included the specific tax rate, excuse me, that you've proposed of .305015 per 100 valuation. Okay.

So there was a motion by Commissioner Hogg and a second by Commissioner Leacock. to consider and take action on a proposed 2026 tax rate of $305015 per $100 evaluation at the regular meeting of Thursday, August 20. And it's at the public hearing of the adopted proposed tax rate at the regular commissioner's court meeting on Thursday, September 3, 2026. Any discussion or questions?

I just want to point, can you go back one slide? For the public, you know, I read this last sentence, and it says that it will increase property taxes more than last year's budget by 1.7%. It says $1.8 million, and it says of that amount, $3.9 million is raised from new property out of the tax rolls. And you're not reading that wrong. It doesn't make any sense. Basically what that's saying is we've had adjustments in value that are eating up almost $2 million of that $4 million increase. So the fact that we have to call this a tax increase and all the stuff we're going to go through here, I think shows some of the weaknesses or challenges we have with the state's language in these matters. The comment that I would make here, too, is moving forward on this tax rate. I think you've done a great job of fitting all that stuff in, especially considering the sales tax increase and what that does to the voter approval rate. And then also working the construction of the jail into the current tax rate. That's amazing. Plus all the other stuff. That's tremendous work by you and Ms. Dorsett and the team. So I look forward to getting this adopted.

So thank you for your comments. And I didn't go over that section on the budget workshop. But there is a slide that tries to break down that impact. The proposed tax rate is expected to generate an additional $1.8 million, roughly, in revenue. But those new properties of the $4 million, that's great. But we have lost value from our role from the prior year. The statement is confusing. I've had multiple attorneys looking at it. I mean, this really is a requirement from the state. And we try to explain it the best we can. And I'd like to make one final comment. It's true. Our taxable value growth has slowed. And when I say that about the COLAs, and I'm not sure what we can do in the future, we really don't know. As growth slows, our taxable value decreases, and it makes it harder to fund a lot of these statutory requirements that we are to fund as county government. And so it just makes it hard. And so it'll be difficult. the next court or next year's court's responsibility to make some pretty conscious decisions on how we protect the taxpayer and ensure that we're not increasing taxes to burden that taxpayer, but also ensure that we are doing our due diligence and our job, our job as commissioners and the court to assure that our county government is operating and functioning as it should for our taxpayers. Any other discussion or questions? OK, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries. Item three is discuss and consider approving the publication of, one, the proposed salary and allowances for elected county and precinct officials, and two, the public hearing dates on the proposed 2027 budget. We will take up these items individually. It is the pleasure of the court.

Judge, I move to approve the publication of notice pursuant to Local Government Code Section 152.013 , providing the public with a maximum potential salary, expense, and allowance increases for each applicable elected county and precinct officer, and to take action after a public hearing on the proposed salaries, expenses, and allowances at the regular meeting of the Commissioner's Court on Thursday, August 20, at 8.30 a.m. And in the amounts proposed in the county judge's recommended budget for fiscal year 2027. Second.

We have a motion by Commissioner Hogg with a second by Commissioner Webb for item three, number one. Do I need to read it back?

Yes, I think you should. Okay.

to approve the publication of notice pursuant to local government code section 152.013 , providing the public with the maximum potential salary, expense, and allowance increases for each applicable elected county and precinct officer, and to take action after a public hearing on the proposed salaries, expenses, and allowances at the regular meeting of the commissioner's court on Thursday, August 20, and in the amounts proposed in the county judge's recommended budget for fiscal year 2027. Any discussion or questions?

I don't know if anyone's here to speak on any of these items.

OK. Sure. That's fine. Is there anyone here that would like to speak on this item, item three, number one or two? Anyone that would like to address the court? Thank you. OK. OK. So we have a motion and a second. Any other discussion or questions?

I want to be specific. That motion is for action agenda item number three, number one. Because I will make a motion shortly for number two.

Right, taking up each specific part of item number three. The motion was for part number one.

This motion was for item three, one. And that's the one I read off. Yes. OK. Any other discussion or questions? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries for item three, number one. Item three, number two, discuss and consider approving the publication of the public hearing dates on the proposed 2027 budget.

Judge, on action agenda item number three, number two, a further move to set public hearings of the proposed 2027 budget at the regular meetings of the commissioner's court on Thursday, August the 20th and Thursday, September the 17th.

Second.

We have a motion by Commissioner Hogg with a second by Commissioner Leacock to move to set the public hearings of the proposed 2027 budget at the regular meetings of the commissioner's court on Thursday, August 20th and Thursday, September 17th.

Any discussion?

All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries. Item number four, discuss and consider approval of the amendment to Platte of Canyon Lake Hills, unit number one, combining lots 498 and 499, establishing lot 498R, and authorize the county judge to sign. Commissioners, there will need to be a correction if a motion is taken. The intent is to combine lots 498 and 499R, establishing lot 498R. Good morning.

Thank you, Judge. Yeah, the family here has an existing amendment to Platte. You can see there 499R. They have the 498 there just north of there. They want to combine all three of those. This is typical, and I'd recommend approval.

Move to approve action agenda item number four with the correction to the agenda item to clarify that the lots affected are 498 and 499R, establishing lot 498R. Second.

There's a motion by Commissioner Leacock with a second by Commissioner Hogg to approve action agenda item number four with a correction of lot 498, combining lots 498 and 499R, establishing lot 498R. Any questions or discussion? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries.

That was easy. I gave Tom quite a bit last week.

Yeah. Okay, item five, discuss and consider acceptance of work authorization number two of the Comel County Road Improvement Program from HNTB.

Good morning, judges and commissioners. Back in March, commissioners' court authorized work authorization two for HNTB to work on our road improvement program. And so HNTB and their sub-ASIs here today to present their findings and recommendations for the court to consider. So I'm going to turn it over to Lonn.

Morning.

Morning, Judge, Commissioners. Thanks for having us today. As Robert mentioned, my name is Lon Schell. I'm with American Structured Point. We're a sub-consultant on the HNTB team. Kristen back there is our program manager. And, of course, you all know Will back there. Will Lockett, formerly with TxDOT. It's been an honor to work for you all, by the way. Getting to know yourselves, your staff, and your citizens through our open houses and our stakeholder meetings has been fantastic. has been a lot of fun, actually. I grew up just across the county line to the north from here, so I'm familiar with the county, but that opportunity to really get to meet people and talk to them intimately about their concerns, what they feel is needed, and how they believe those things should be done is always fun for me, so I appreciate that opportunity. We'll get started on this, and this is our work authorization number two report. So we were here before, where we presented a project list, which we kind of call an improvement plan. And that came from mainly internal stakeholder input, yourselves, your staffs, where we designed different types of alternatives and improvements for intersections, stretches of roadways, low-water crossings, drainage issues, railroad crossings, etc. And we presented those to you then. Since that point, we then took that to the public, and we had open houses across the county. We had a website. We received public comments both in person and online, and we took all of that information, and we then added some projects to that list, which we're going to show, and then we tried to develop some programs out of that list. In other words, how would you approach making these improvements, not just yourselves, but potentially along with partners at TxDOT, through your MPO, or through even some cities or other local participation? And so, move on to that. Some of the stakeholder meetings we had, we did send emails out across the county to different, a broad variety of potential stakeholders. The ones that we received that wanted to have in-person meetings are those that are listed here. So we had some really good input from TxDOT and the NPO. I was very impressed with strategies that your NPO is developing right now to help The local partners deliver some improvements together and regionally, and I think those are some really good outcomes that will come from that. And we did take a focus on that when we developed those programs of some of those ideas that your MPO is now working on and how some of these projects can be developed as partnerships. Open houses, I mentioned before, we had our kickoff here at the courthouse on June 18th. kind of a county-wide kickoff. We had good participation at all of them, a couple better than others. We moved to Garden Ridge and then across the rest of the county and then in Bulverde. That draft project list that I mentioned, those are some of the categories we broke these various projects down into. Some of the projects, you might have a corridor of an FM road between two intersections that creates the limits. There might be other intersections within those limits that are included as projects, so you can kind of see sometimes it might look like, well, there's a stretch of road That's a project, but we also have three intersections within those. We broke that out just for the ability to prioritize. You may not be able to address an entire corridor at some point when you choose to, but you might be able to address one or two of those intersections along that corridor. And so that's why you'll see that when you look at the list. And then the list, the ones in blue are the ones that were added since our last presentation to you all. You can kind of see that most of those came from some type of a stakeholder or public engagement. Maybe we were meeting with one of the cities and they had mentioned there was an issue there, brought it to the attention, we worked with your staff. And we then decided, let's go ahead and put that on the list. There was some interest there. And these lists aren't meant to be written in stone. Obviously, things change. Some of these projects could be something that's not prioritized by you or others. Some might. Some might change. Or you might have, all of a sudden, a subdivision flat get thrown in your lap that creates problems. and roads that you have to address that aren't included on these lists today. So it's meant to be a starting point. I think it's a pretty good cross-section. We'll look precinct by precinct. You know, all of your precincts are obviously different. You know them intimately. The idea is it's not necessary that you're trying to have the same number, exact same number of projects per precinct or the exact same number of value for those projects by precinct. but to actually take a really good look across the county and what's best for the county as a whole. As it turns out, there's a couple precincts that do stick out that there's been a lot more growth than others, and some of those are reflected in the number of projects. But I do think it's still a really good balance, and I think there's been a lot of good input from each of you, your staff, and also the public to see what is important for one precinct. There could be a relatively small project. that's very important for your community that maybe has a less value than something that's along the I-35 corridor that has a very large value. Even those projects are very different in scope and potential cost to the citizens that they impact. They're extremely important. So not to discredit some of what might be considered smaller projects across the county that can be just as important to the public at large as some of the large ones are. And so as we develop this, you'll kind of see some of these corridors. You all know them well. We understand that the growth that you all are experiencing is creating stresses on those. And so we've tried to put a strategy together how you, along with future partners, could potentially address some of those solutions. And you'll stop me anytime if there's something that sticks out. And so going into the kind of the programs, our scope asked us to try to present three alternatives for how you could potentially address some of these projects that are included in that plan. We started with what we call a minimum recommended, and that was $100 million program. What if the county wanted to try to invest tax dollars now into the future to do something at around $100 million value? What would that look like? And that's, as you'll see, mainly a planning and design type of a program. Because the value associated with construction of these projects is so high, you really can't fit a good, broad cross-section of projects into $100 million. We do have some construction identified in that program for low-water crossings, which our staff, over time, has developed a really good understanding of low-water crossings across this county. And so they are already prioritized. You all obviously experience some extreme flooding not long ago, you have a very good understanding from yourselves and your staff on those. And so there is money to actually make improvements to those lower crossings. But for that range of dollar, you're really looking at mainly just planning and design of projects. Then we kind of move into more of a mid-sized program on our scope set, try to fit something into a $200 million range. That's when we start adding construction onto some of those projects. We add a little bit more planning on some others, so we have a longer list of projects. It includes all of those that were in the first recommendation, and also the low-water crossings. Our value goes up from $5 to $15 million to provide for even further construction. And the strategy on this was to take... through our conversations with you all, those kind of priority projects, those ones, twos, and threes that just stick out. It's like this has been a problem, it's continued to be a problem, it's always going to be a problem if it's not done. And try to get those constructed in this program. And then take the next prioritized projects and try to plan for them. And then the final recommendation in our scope was to create a program in the $300 million range. And so this is obviously much more encompassing. We add more projects. We add a couple more for construction. And this strategy is really to develop a program that would someday be able to take your investment and leverage it with other dollars. So after the meetings with your metropolitan planning organization with TxDOT, what types of projects are likely to score high if you were to turn it in for an MPO call for projects? What type of projects would fit into some categories that TxDOT uses? that if you put some investment in, they could take it across the finish line. That was sort of the strategy that we worked on here, is to get a very good cross-section of projects that are likely to receive some funding opportunities from outside sources. And a lot of those opportunities require some form of investment to get. It's very competitive whenever there's a call for projects. Those that have work that have been done for them obviously usually score higher. because that money has to be spent within a certain period of time based upon the planning of our state and federal governments. And so this is kind of that third maximum recommendation, but mainly the strategy was to actually deliver improvements to your citizens and also at the same time plan for a future of leveraging your funds to gain access to both federal and state tax dollars.

Mr. Schell, let me ask you a question real quick. Can you go back to that slide? So, for example, on project here, number 31, it's Watson Lane, and then the far right, you've got $68 million. So I assume that would be the total cost for everything that gets done there. So if we turn that into the MPO and three separate projects, maybe we could break it up, and those become $20 million projects that maybe we could get funding from the MPO to cover 80% of or something like that. Yes. So this is sort of maximum risk right here on that particular program?

Yes. And also to note that some that have construction during project development, there doesn't mean there's not an opportunity to take that project and say, hey, I'm working on this, TxDOT or MPO. I've got all of this done. It doesn't mean that you have to be the one that pays for that construction. It just meant that we have programmed it for in this program. Or break it up into segments. A lot of times that happens. You have a stretch. text I can say hey I can I could if you break this up to these two limits we could do that now two years from now we might be able to do two three etc so it doesn't mean that it's set in stone that way it's just a way to try to develop a budget that takes care of the county across the county that makes sure you're addressing issues everywhere I mean we all we all live in our specific area we get in our car we take our kids to school we go to the store we live in you know we experience different things And to try to address that across the county, which is a large county with a lot of growth, and growth for good reasons, people want to move here, is very challenging. And dollars, when you start constructing things, those dollars become obviously much, much larger. And I'm happy to answer any questions. And we do have a report that will also be delivered. And in that report, we have a project sheet for each one of these projects that's included in the plan and these programs. which shows the location, the description of the types of improvements that are proposed, and also the cost. And then there is an estimate, a cost estimate for each one of those projects that you can see as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm sorry.

So I want to move to accept the work authorization number two from the Comow County Road Improvement Program from HNTB. Second.

We have a motion by Commissioner Webb with a second by Commissioner Leacock to approve action agenda item number five. Any discussion or questions?

Just a couple of comments to close out before you all take your vote. First, the work authorization 2 is the last work authorization we have with H&TB. So currently, there's nothing else. All you're doing is accepting the report. Second, the purpose of the report provides a roadmap for the commissioner's court to consider moving forward. So however you all want to use that going forward, it's a good product. And then third, Lon mentioned the report. This is a summary of it, but the report that we have We'll put that on our website. And so the court, the public can all see that and go in-depth on everything Lon presented this morning for all the project that we're considering there. So just want to make those final comments for your consideration.

Thank you. Robert, there was one more thing, just a real minor issue. They had 1863 listed on one side, and then they changed the number to 1183. We just want to make sure we go through theirs before any of that goes forward so we will have it documented correctly instead of those two numbers. Just make sure they're all right. Absolutely. Yes, sir.

Any other discussions?

Yeah, so I've made no secret. I think that we need to move forward on some of these projects. We have to figure out a way forward. I think that in conjunction with all the facility work that we've done in consideration of the improvements on our different facilities across the county, that we should move forward with some sort of a public engagement process and potentially look forward to a bond in the future. Go ask the people, hey, we've done all this prep work. We have all these feasibility studies. We have all this groundwork done. Now let's bring some folks together and get some ideas from the public on how they'd like to go forward. So I'd like to look at doing that here, and then we'll talk about it in the next few months and potentially in the new year. I'd like to see us move forward with some sort of advisory committee or some sort of a process to go ask folks, hey, here's the stuff, here's what it's going to cost. We need your input to see what people want to get done. It's super hard now. I mean, these big capital projects are very expensive, and the pressures that we're being put under in different ways make it very hard to move forward on these things without general obligation bonds that we'd like the public to support us on. So I'd like to see it move that direction.

Yes, sir.

I agree with that 100%. Yes, sir.

Thank you. Mark it down on the record.

No comment.

Thank you, Robert. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Robert, and thanks to the crew that did the work for this. I attended one of the meetings. I know other commissioners attended their precincts, and I just appreciate the work they did and the result. Yes, ma'am.

Well, and one of the things I'd like to point out in these projects, the numbered roadways, like a broken record, we're always harping that those are TxDOT, not county. But one of the things that we're seeing other counties being very successful with as far as leveraging additional projects on the TxDOT roadways, they're investing in those projects in order to get TxDOT to then take the lead. And if we just sit and wait for TxDOT to do these projects, we're going to wait for a very, very long time. So I just want to make that point because there is the difference in whose authority and who's whose responsibility these different roads are. But at some point, you kind of got to extend that olive branch and take care of some of this stuff in order to prepare. And I know that I totally fumbled the comment, but hopefully I made my point.

Unquestionably, local participation moves your tech stop projects forward faster. We've seen it in other counties, Hays County specifically. You know, well, Commissioner Schell was a long-time commissioner there. And, I mean, we've used their example here to kind of move forward. I mean, there's no doubt that local participation moves state projects forward much more rapidly. And we need that here.

Much more eloquently stated.

That was great. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries.

Thank you all very much.

Thank you. Item six, discuss and consider approval of resolution number 2026-15, authorizing county grant program year 2027 under the Texas Department of Agriculture, Texas, Texans Feeding Texans Home Delivered Meals Grant Program. Good morning.

Good morning. How are you? I'm Chris Smith. I'm the executive director of the Comal County Senior Citizens Foundation. We're a nonprofit that operates the 710 Center located on 710 Landa, conveniently enough. We are one of the meal providers for Comal County. And so this grant will help supplement that. Just to give you an update as far as our services go, just last quarter, including a home-delivered and a congregate meal, I know this is home-delivered, but we also offer a congregate meal every day. Anybody 60 or older that is a resident of Comal County can come to this center for a free lunch. And so with that, last quarter we did 10,722 meals. free of charge. So we're on pace to do over 40,000 meals in Comal County for our seniors.

Move to approve action to item number six.

Second. There's a motion to approve action to item number six by Commissioner Webb with a second by Commissioner Crownover. Any discussion or questions for Mr. Smith?

Thank you for the work you do. Thank you.

All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries. Thank you for being here. Item seven, discuss and consider approval of the interlocal agreement for the provision of law enforcement services by and between Comal Independent School District and Comal County, Texas, an authorized county judge to sign.

Sounds like a good idea.

Good morning.

I do thank Lori Means. We've worked on this for quite a while. Judge, commissioners, this particular agreement is for this. It'll be the end of this year. It does incorporate all the SROs that are now in the community resource team. Basically, the only thing other than the number of officers that's included in there, we did put some of the summer programs in there, but it's the dates and the rate. And then we will come back at the end of December as we move into the new year. Because it's difficult to do this agreement when we're doing a rate for half of the year. and then we have the budget, and then we come in here. So Lori suggested that we just come in here and do an amendment. But this is for this portion of the end of 2026.

Move to approve action agenda item number seven.

Second.

There's a motion to approve action agenda item number seven by Commissioner Hogg, with a second by Commissioner Leacock. Any discussion or questions for the chair? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carried. Thank you. Thank you. Item 8, discuss and consider approval of a licensed training provider agreement between the Comal County Sheriff's Office and the American Red Cross and authorized sheriff to sign. Good morning.

Good morning, Judge. Good morning, Commissioners. This is a standard agreement between the Red Cross and any entity that provides Red Cross training for first aid, CPR, and AED. So just signing this allows us to provide that training to our telecommunicators, our corrections officers, and our deputies.

Move to approve action agenda item number 8. Second.

This is a motion to approve action agenda item number eight by Commissioner Hogg with a second by Commissioner Leacock. Any discussion or questions? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries. Thank you. Item nine, discuss and consider approval to release request for qualifications 2026-570 for executive recruitment services for Comel County.

Good morning, judges and commissioners. So this RFQ, just exactly what it states, is going to go out there and we're going to try to find a good recruitment service. Staffing agency has all kinds of names to go ahead and find... Mr. Horne says replacement. So I provided a timeline on here. The timeline is actually off. August 27th, we actually do not have court. So the evaluation committee portion will be brought up to the court on the 20th. There's nothing that stops us from putting the committee ahead of the deadline or the due date. So I'll go ahead and make that change on that. But again, we're ready to go. So I respectfully request approval of this agenda item.

Move to approve action agenda item number nine with the adjustments outlined by Mr. Davila. Second. Second.

There's a motion to approve action agenda item number nine by Commissioner Leacock with a second by Commissioner Hogg with the amendments provided by Mr. Davila. Any questions or concerns or discussion? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carried. Thank you, JD. Item 10, discuss and consider approval of the purchase of nine PTZ cameras, six flood monitoring nodes at the county maintained dams, and three flood monitoring nodes along the Cibolo Creek out of 010.032.5619 capital equipment. No budget amendment is necessary.

Good morning, judges and commissioners. This is an emergency management line item. Sammy wasn't able to be here, so I coordinated with him earlier this week to talk about this. There's two funding sources we've been talking about with these systems. One is the Water Development Board funding that the court authorized last year. We're continuing to pursue that, but this is the budgeted items from 2026. Move to approve. Oh, sorry. So just a couple of things is that this is the original budget that was approved in the 2026 budget for emergency management. And what we're proposing is like the item says nine PTZ cameras, six flood monitoring nodes, and three low water crossings with cameras. And these are the locations. So the dams, we have our cameras that will be out there that we can be able to see what's happening in the dams during a flood event. We'll also have our nodes there so we can see how much water is in the inundation area. We have four existing cameras in the four crossings. We're going to put three upstream. And then finally, along the Cibolo, we'll have some low water crossings with cameras out there as well.

Move to approve action agenda item number 10. Second.

There's a motion to approve action agenda item number 10 by Commissioner Hogg, with a second by Commissioner Leacock. Any discussion or questions?

Yeah, Robert, we don't use these cameras very often, thank goodness. But when we do use them, they are very valuable. And I appreciate y'all's work that y'all have done to keep expanding the program that we're working on. Yes, sir.

Yeah, I'd like to echo that. The work that your team does on these and now with Sammy involved, I'm really proud and happy to know that y'all are keeping us ahead of the curve once again on our safety when it comes to low water crossings and notifications.

Yes, ma'am.

Any other discussion? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries.

Very good. Thank you.

Thank you. Item 11, discuss and consider approval of a line item transfer in animal control from hospitalization and capital equipment to training, supplement, and animal tending and boarding to provide funds for the remainder of 2026 for animal control operational costs.

Good morning again, judge and commissioners. I respectfully request to move for this line item transfer to cover the FTOs, because I'm fully staffed and I ran a little short this year. And then the animal tending and mortars caused a couple of big cases that we worked earlier this year that we fell a little short. So I'm just requesting to move some money to continue the cost for animal control for the remainder of the year.

Move to approve action agenda item number 11.

Second. Motion by Commissioner Leacock with a second by Commissioner Crownover to approve action agenda item number 11. Any discussion or questions? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries.

Thank you. Thank you.

Item 12, discuss and consider approval of a line item transfer in jail from prisoner supplies and training and education to training supplement to provide funds to cover training officer pay for the remainder of the year. Good morning.

Good morning, judges and commissioners. I just wanted to take a moment to explain to you how we got here and provide a good update on the jail. few times we get to do so. If you remember last year around this time we were up here asking for additional overtime funds because we were so short staffed and we had so many vacancies to fill. Since that time our staff was going out doing some active recruiting. We were going to local job fairs, getting out into the communities. I'm very pleased to say that for the last several months we've actually been operating at 100% staffing with no vacancies. Now, through the course of natural progression, we've had several individuals leave. So we do have a few vacancies right now. But I am happy to say that we will be doing testing in several weeks. And we have 55 applicants that are competing for those few positions that we have. Because of all of that hiring, what this lighting item funds is the training supplement that we paid to our officers that are training that new staff coming on. So the movement of this funds will provide Funds to cover for the rest of the year for those individuals to be trained. I respectfully request your approval of this agenda item.

Move to approve action agenda item number 12.

Second.

There's a motion to approve action agenda item number 12 by Commissioner Hogg with a second by Commissioner Leacock. Any questions or comments?

Thank you for your recruitment efforts.

Sorry, I was going too fast.

All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries.

Thank you, Captain.

Item 13, discuss and consider approval of a line item transfer in Sheriff from hourly personnel to software subscription Savita, recurring contracts, and capital equipment to provide funds for the 2026 Motorola radio system warranty required rifle shields for school resource officers, standalone radio circuit with associated monthly fees, and ALPR commercial data fees for a five-year period. Good morning.

Good morning, Judge, Commissioners. So we're requesting this line item transfer from our hourly personnel, unpaid salaries, to cover the radio warranty for this year, which is a very large chunk of this money. The remaining money will be used to purchase 10 rifle-rated shields to put in the new campuses. and to be able to replenish the shields that we've taken from patrol supervisors to put in schools we've absorbed since we got the grant three years ago. The other money is for taking a three-year contract for AOPR services for in-car video cameras and making it a five-year. The commercial data portion was overlooked as we were new to this whole process. and the new technologies that was overlooked that's adding that, covering that money. The last part's a pretty neat feature. It's going to be a standalone circuit for our radio system that will connect our radio room to the core. And in the event that circuit goes down, it has LTE backup. It's actually cheaper than what we're currently paying for that circuit every year. And it will be managed by the vendor.

Move to approve action. Agenda item number 13. Second.

A motion by Commissioner Hogg with a second by Commissioner Leacock to approve action agenda item number 13. Any questions?

Discussion?

All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries.

Thank you.

Item 14, discuss and consider approval of a line item transfer in information technology from recurring contracts and computer training to non-capital equipment to provide funds for replacement batteries for data center UPS. Good morning.

Good morning, everyone. This is just moving around of funds. We purchased a new UPS for our data center a few years ago. And those batteries just have to be replaced every few years. And this wasn't on our normal maintenance rotation. So we just had to add this in here. And I respectfully request approval.

Move to approve action agenda item number 14.

Second. So motion to approve action agenda item number 14 by Commissioner Leacock with a second by Commissioner Cronover. Any questions? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries. Thank you.

Thank you.

Item 15, discuss and consider approval of the line item transfer and purchasing from software subscription Civita to continuing ed travel to provide funds for software training.

Good morning again, Judge and Commissioners. We've been working on a couple of projects in our office, trying to automate and go digital in a lot of our inventory and assets. We're going to move to this big asset project here at the end of the year, so I need some additional funding. So I did have the money in Sabita, and I'm just asking to move it into continued ed and travel.

Move to approve action agenda item number 15. Second.

There's a motion by Commissioner Hogg with a second by Commissioner Leacock to approve action agenda item number 15. Any questions? All those in favor, please raise your right hand.

Thank you.

Motion carries. Item 16 is executive session. In accordance with Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code, Subchapter D, Commissioner's Court may convene in a closed session to discuss any of the following items. Any final action or vote will be taken in public. We will be going into executive session today under D. Discuss the duties, responsibilities, and hiring of the county administrator position in accordance with Section 551.074 of the Texas Government Code. And we will need our legal counsel to join us. We are going into executive session at 9.23. We are returning from executive session at 9.45 AM. For the record, we did meet an executive session under C, deliberate pending contemplated litigation settlement offers in matters concerning privilege and unprivileged client information deemed confidential by Rule 1.05 of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct in accordance with Section 551.071 of the Texas Government Code. And there is no action to be taken, so we are in recess until August 13 at 9.45. Thank you.