Commissioner's Court - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Mr. Raj for the pledge. Jim Wells County Commissioners Court for today, September 2nd, 2026, 9 AM is now in session. Agenda item number three, public testimony. We have one. I'm trying.

Emilia Valdez. It's Valdez.

Emilia? Is that what it says? Emilia Valdez. You want to address the court at this time? Come on up, please. Please state your name for the court.

My name is Emilia Valadez. Good morning members of the Commissioner's Court and members of the audience. My name is Emilia Valadez, daughter of Dr. Roel Valadez Jr. and Edma Valadez. I'm currently a senior at Alice High School where I am involved in multiple organizations such as the Alice High School Band, Student Council, HOSA, soccer, and the National Honor Society. First, I would like to thank you for your service to our community. Your leadership plays a vital role in shaping the future of the city of Alice. From decisions you actively make to the unwavering support you offer, it all makes a difference in the lives of students, families, and future generations. I'm here today to ask for your support in helping Alice ISD and to keep promoting the campaign mottos, attendance matters, I matter, and it starts with me. Your voices carry influence and it is very important that as public servants we hear your voice. For these campaign mottos are not only essential to our school district, they exemplify to all that being at school every day matters and that we as individuals matter. The influence of LSISD must come a long way. From pre-K to high school, LSISD provides great opportunities for students with diverse interests and backgrounds. Our faculty and staff make it possible every day for us to reach our goals, and evidently, their unwavering dedication is making a difference. We have been making great amounts of progress as a school district, where LSISD is a B-rated district, but there are many things we can celebrate within this new rating. For the first time in Alice history, Alice High School and Chowder Elementary have been bestowed the title of an A-rated campus. Coming from a student of the high school, it is not only evident in the rating reports, but the changes that we have made throughout my time there have allowed many individuals to feel safe and seen when they are learning. This hard work could not have been without the support of our community, faculty, and staff. We must keep this motivated complex because we still have a long way to go in terms of meeting the definitive goal of reaching an A rating as a whole. I'm proud to share that students of Alice ISD are already doing great things early in the school year. Alice High School has kicked off its senior year with cross country, volleyball, football, and fine arts making their season debut. Cross country has been doing very well. The boys team won first overall in border olympics and the girls team won second as well. Volleyball has been doing great and many more games are to come. Lastly, the football team won against the Beeville Trojans on Friday night and is looking forward to tomorrow when they go against the Robstown Cotton Pickers. The influence of everyone in the Alice community and their unwavering dedication has set forth a path for students to fulfill their goals and to enjoy their school experiences. For example, during my time at Alice High School, I've been able to take college and AB classes, be an active member of athletics, cheer, earn my CCMR point, and become a leader in both the Alice Marching Band and National Honor Society. For it is evident that a strong education builds strong students. And with the support of our community, it has surpassed not only my expectations, but others alike of how a school district could be. This is why I ask the city count, ooh, the commissioner's court to help promote our students, programs, and achievements. Your voices carry great amounts of influence. And with your support, we can remind our community of the great things happening here at Alice ISD. Thank you for your time, your service, and your commitment to Alice ISD. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. We appreciate that. And I know me speaking, and probably I know my commissioners can speak for themselves, but we support AISD and all AISDs 110%. We are so proud of the progress that Alice High School has made with their ratings with their students. Every student that has come over here and has presented to us has been tip top. And I'm very appreciative of that. And I venture to say that here in the near future, we will command alice high school and recognize you guys in commissioner's court uh ever ever since uh the the ratings have come out uh we have spoken about a little bit uh not only alice high school but all the schools around around jamal's county have have done an excellent job And we appreciate you all very much. And Ms. Valadez, thank you very much for coming to presenting and representing Alice High School and presenting to us here at the Jumos County Commission. Thank you so much. Anybody else like to? Let's go ahead and take a photograph. Would you like to take a photograph?

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, ready? One, two, three.

One more.

Great. How are you? Been a while.

Would anybody else like to address the court at this time?

Yes, sir. I just want to let the public know, the commissioner's court know, that we're, Chemours County is working together with the city of Atlas to reconstruct South Johnson Street all the way to the pig farm. It's about 5,000 feet of road improvement. And I want to thank the judge, Ventura, and all those involved. we're coming together and uh making this possible um without everybody working together you know sometimes it's not possible so i just want to congratulate the whole group here commissioner's court the county and everybody's involved in the city of atlas thank you thank you anybody else

Hearing none, we're going to move forward to agenda item number four, budget workshop session number one, 4.1, whole 2027 budget workshop session. OK, so we're going to begin our 2027 budget workshop. Last commissioner's court, we reviewed the proposed budget. The proposed budget was filed on August 12, 2026. We approved the 2026 proposed tax rate. for the budget at $0.787. Not to alarm anybody that we're going to raise taxes or anything like that. Those are bad words here in commissioner's court. We don't use those words. The main goal is to approve and to work this 2027 budget with our current tax rate, which we've had a plan and a goal to keep the tax rate the same these last two years and again this year. And it has worked. The plan is working. The goals and objectives that we have are working. Our negatives are getting less. And sooner or later, they will get to where we'll approve a balanced budget like we did back in 17 and 18. Regardless, right now, starting at the tax rate at 0.767, we're starting in the black at $14,306. We're going to see what happens during the request for today and what we approved on Friday. Last year's Negative in the proposed budget was negative 951,573 dollars and 27 cents. We definitely don't want to go over that. We. hopefully are making that progress, like I said earlier, with maintaining the 0.767 tax rate. So that being said, commissioners, would you like to say anything before we move forward? Hearing none, we're going to move forward. I'm going to go ahead and go with the district clerk. Start off with a district clerk. He's got to get going. So Mr. David, can you come up?

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The district clerk's office, we have no request for my office. However, I did submit the new proposal for our case management system that involves several departments. Judge, I left a copy in your office and I gave a copy also to Cindy. So that's the only thing that we need to look at. So thank you so much for all you do.

Thank you so much. And that issue will be addressed in my non-departmental section of the budget hearings. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. OK, we'll go back up to the constables, precincts 1 through 6, constable precinct 1.

Good morning, Judge, Commissioners, Albert Martinez, Jim Wills County, Precinct 1 Constable. I want to thank you all for all you do, and my office has no request. Thank you all very much.

One question. Thank you.

Constable, Precinct 3.

Jim Long, Constable, Precinct 3, Sandia area. Handed out a little handout showing the request for this year. You know, I'll start on the top. Increase the salary to 50,000. Our office is about two more offices are making well above 50. We're trying to bump up to at least 50. We've been very active in our precinct and in other precincts. I'm requesting a deputy again. There's a, I guess on the justification page back behind that, the deputy position was done away with on May 20th, 2016. We had a deputy at that time with the influx of people moving into our precinct. Again, I think that is detrimental. It would be nicely to have for our area. uh for the travel if you go back to the justification page it shows the Expenses were actually using for the two vehicles for my department Never had had actually done a break break down Given that 18 our actual expenses are twenty twenty eight thousand oh seventeen So we're about little over eight thousand dollars Excuse me ten thousand dollars in a deficit just for using our vehicles. It's mandated by Jim Wells County so we're asking an increase on that line item and And then on postage, everything's gone up on that, a $40 increase on postage. And then same thing for the conferences and associations. The travel that we're mandated, we have a total of 16 more hours mandated by TCOLE that is unfunded. We're asking for a $500 increase in the conferences and associations. And then on the back of that, there is a quote from Wolfcom for our body cameras. Ours are pretty well outdated. And by law, we have to have body cameras. And we've already had the one we've had replaced, I mean not replaced, repaired three times. It is, again, not working this year. So we submitted that quote for body cameras. I don't know if that needs to be presented at this time or not, but that is not an annual expense. That is just a one-time expense. Does anybody have any questions? What's the total you're requesting? Do you have it here? The total. You have it broken down, but is there a total? On the bottom of that spreadsheet, 160,894. 160.

But the total of the requests.

That and then the body cameras was not added to that.

56 tons . OK. All right. Thank you, Jim. Yes, sir. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Constable Precinct 4. He's not here, and I don't think my office received any requests at all. Precinct 5, same thing. And Precinct 6. Same thing, so we're putting that as no request.

Mr. Long. Yes, sir. The increase, it doesn't include the cameras, does it?

Cameras, no, it does not. It doesn't include, okay. It does not.

Okay, moving forward, tax assessor collector.

Good morning. This is Mary Lozano, the tax assessor. And thank you for everything that you've done for me in my office. But I do have a little request of an increase of $200 more for gas. Because as you know, gas has really gone up quite a bit. To even it out for the year, I am requesting $200. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mary.

By the way, I didn't tell you why I requested more. I have the two offices in Orange Grove and Fremont, and I do plan later to open up two days in Orange.

DISTRICT ADJOURNEY?

THANK YOU, JUDGE, COMMISSIONERS.

AT THIS TIME, I DO NOT HAVE ANY REQUESTS, BUT I DO NEED TO PUT SOME THINGS ON THE RECORD BECAUSE IT MIGHT NOT BE THE SAME NEXT YEAR. BUT I DO WANT TO KIND OF LET YOU KNOW WHERE WE'RE AT. We've had a lot of increases in our fuel costs, conference costs, software, and equipment. This year I thought was going to be the year I was going to actually have to come and ask because asset forfeiture cases have not been coming in the way they used to. But one of the benefits we had this year is you know we're part of the border prosecution unit in region three. We were able to get one of the regional attorneys for the border prosecution unit out of hidalgo county. to help us with asset forfeiture cases. He's been helping other counties such as Clayburgh, Kennedy. So he's been acting as that resource. And he's been able to go back into some of the cases that have been pending for a while. So we were lucky to get some funds into the asset forfeiture funds. But when you're looking at how many new cases are coming in, I mean, usually I've used the revenue that we're expecting or projecting of about $250,000 a year. And that's what I put in my budget. I know you don't have the asset forfeiture budget in your packets. It was submitted, but it was submitted on the 13th. I was having some computer problems and couldn't get it to the auditor's office in time. But it remained at $250,000 as projected revenue. But if we hadn't gone through some of those older cases, that projection would have probably come down probably to about 200,000. And one of the issues that we have is sometimes people will look at, well, the account looks healthy, but really it's not healthy. We don't, through my office, tap into most of those funds. And the reason is Those funds are used for a lot of the grants that we administer. I have an attorney general grant that provides $45,000 for a victim assistant coordinator. Thing is, what she gets paid, that $45,000 doesn't So we do have to supplement with asset forfeiture for her benefits. The other thing is that gets paid up front through the asset forfeiture funds and then gets reimbursed. And we have a governor grant that's $302,000. thousand dollars a an annual that one also we pay it up front and then it gets reimbursed also using those asset forfeiture funds plus that one has a 20% match so we end up having to put in you know the 20% then we have the Board of Prosecution unit that one is About $872,000 a year. Now, in that, I'd say about 80% of that is personnel. The rest is for conferences, travel, the software. Any software we're using for the extra attorneys is being covered by that. those funds generally i can't touch because i know it needs to go out first then it gets reimbursed and it just kind of recycles except for That 20% that we have to to pay out now part of that 20%. Brooks is actually assisting us with because one of the positions out of brooks county was converted to a crime victim service person and so we're getting some some in kind. uh benefit out of that so just want to let you know that's one of the things that that we're dealing with is a lot of the things that we've been covering and and that goes into one of the things that i want to talk about For years we've been using for discovery, we've been kind of doing a shoestring budget. We've been using Dropbox to send the information out to the, well, get the cases from law enforcement, and then we use that same process to get the discovery to the defense attorneys. We utilize our own hardware to basically save all that information. So we've got hard drives that are in the server that basically are eating up tons and tons of data. And we're going to run out of space eventually. Most of the other DA's offices are moving to a cloud-based scenario where that's where all the information is being held. I did some research. Most of them are just way out of our budget. I mean, some of them was going to cost about $100,000 upfront just to get it set up, and then an annual cost of about $70,000. We were able to find one that tech share is what I'm looking at. And this year, we're going to try to implement that. That one has about a $20,000 upfront cost to implement. And then they charge, based on the prosecutors, about $1,200. Right now it's about $1,200 annual. So if I have five attorneys, you multiply that out. They keep all the information. The reason I think they're a lot more cost effective than the other companies is they're a nonprofit. They're actually owned by the counties that buy into them. Closest one to us is Clayburgh. The next one, because they're in like 64 counties or jurisdictions right now. The other one is Cameron County. We got to go and play around with it. Kleberg let us get a kind of like a sample license with them so we could kind of see how it worked. A lot of the agencies that are involved in Kleberg are happy with it. DPS is happy with it because right now DPS is the only one that can't use Dropbox because it doesn't comply with their security protocols. This one does because it see just compliant it's got all the things so this year. Thanks to the money that did come in from those older cases I am going to use that to implement it but. It's likely going to be something that next year i'm going to be coming to commissioners court asking for funds for that, because we're not going to be able to keep you and one we don't even have you know the room for putting more and more hard drives you know I think we have like a 100 terabytes right now, and We probably have maybe a year to two years before we're out of space, maybe even less, because as more departments are utilizing the body cameras, and it's just eating up so much data when they turn in a case. And we're, like I said, running out of room to hold all those cases, but we're required to. Now, as far as, you know, things that we've attempted to do to save money, I mean, we've taken all of our gas logs. We've run it through a program to see, well, which investigator needs to be using which vehicle so that they're saving money. We've already done that. We've been in discussions with the district judge. We're working with the district clerk to try to come up with a plan that will recycle some of the data media that we're using so that once it gets you know put into the to the clerk system that we can get those back so that we can you know save some money there so we're looking at any way we can to try to save funds for the department and for the county so those are just some of the things that i wanted to put one other thing because grants deal with us and i know the grant administrator is going to come up i just wanted to add That has been a significant assistance in the grants that i'm administering, and I know it probably with all the others. I think our county with the number of grants that we deal with, and the number of of State funds and Federal funds that are coming in that we're able to You know, bring into to service our community and our county. I think we needed that type of position. Somebody who could just be dedicated to coordinating with everybody, because you know i'm doing my part for my department, but i've got other duties on you know that I have to deal with as well. The auditor's office, the treasurer's office. You know all of us are have our other duties that we're having to deal with, and having somebody who can basically be in there and coordinate and make sure that everything we're doing is compliant with what they want in Austin or in Washington, wherever the the grant funds end up coming. So I just wanted Being that that does tie into the funds that I'm having to administer, I just wanted to point that out, because we end up cutting somewhere. I would hope that's not one of them, because it has really, really assisted. Thank you. That's all I have.

KEN HOWARD JR.: County auditor?

Good morning, Judge and Commissioners. The only thing, of course, our court order will go through District Court of September 16th, but the only thing that we will be requesting is going to be the additional funds for our financial software that was approved earlier in the year. We're looking at about $42,000. So that will be in the court order that I'll share with you once we take it to District Court.

$42,000?

Yes.

Thank you. County Court at Law, Judge.

Good morning, Judge and Commissioners. How are you all doing?

Good morning.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to come up here and discuss the budget, the proposed budget for 2027 from my office. I will let you know I haven't had an opportunity to look over the proposed budget, and the only request I would have would be an increase in the salary of a new employee. This past year, you all did add a new employee to our office who we designated as a secretary. And I will tell you that Ms. Tanguma has been quite a nascent to our office. She definitely deserves a lot of the credit, deserves her fair share of the credit, I'll say, for how efficient that office has been running this year. So we are requesting at this time, she's right now, she's considered a part-timer and we were able to get the funds because we transferred some of the funds from monies that was a line item for our bailiff. Some of that money was transferred into and put into a line item for secretary and that's how she was, is being paid this year, but we were asking for an increase of, or really to make her a full-timer, and so we're asking for an increase of $15,429 to her salary, which would allow us to make her a full-timer. If I may approach, I do have a, I prepared just a little points of...

We've been doing a great job in helping again how efficient their office has been running.

I think certainly if she would have spent a little bit more time in the office, be a full-timer, I'd like to think the office certainly run a lot more efficient. I can give her credit for certainly As you know, we have a jail overcrowding issue right now. And I can tell you, she certainly has been on top of that as far as from our office. So, you know, daily she's looking at our jail roster, identifying individuals who have cases before my court, which are the criminal misdemeanors. She identifies those individuals. She will talk with me about it and then we'll coordinate with the county attorney's office or whoever we need to, to see about maybe perhaps working on getting those individuals at the very least set up for court. Now we're having court, criminal court were twice a month. And she's the one that of course is helping out and setting up those dockets. And not only the dockets for regular individuals who are not in custody, but certainly the individuals that are in custody. Not only that, in between there, she's also identifying individuals who possibly we can consider releasing on bond. And like I said, we coordinate with county attorney's office and we certainly work on if they're based on their offense, any history or whatever. We will work on getting those individuals out, which, of course, saves the county money in that we are able to meet those individuals.

She's going to be considered part-time still?

I would like to make her a full-timer.

But $50,000 is not going to cover it.

I'm sorry, an increase of $15,000. I apologize. Right now, she's currently making $23,134. We're asking her for an increase of $15,429, which would kick her up to $38,563. Okay. So that her salary, if approved by this court, would increase to $38,563. It's not $15,000. No, no, no, the increase. I'm sorry. And I apologize if I didn't make that clear when I first stated that number. That's just the increase. That's just the increase. Yes, sir. We're asking for that increase. Certainly, if anybody has any questions, I'm certainly open to answering any questions that you may have. But we do believe Ms. Tanguma has been an asset. And I think she definitely would, if she were to be a full-timer and be able to spend more time here in the office. I'd like to think that office would certainly run a little bit more efficient. If you look at it, break it down, she'd probably be looking at making maybe $1,000 more a month, or I guess for our budget, it would be an increase of $1,000 more a month. And I think that certainly is based on what she provides to the office. I think that is reasonable. Any questions? Thank you very much for your time and attention.

Thank you. Thank you. County attorney?

Good morning, Judge, Commissioners, Michael Guerra, County Attorney. I don't have any requests. My budget, as you know, is mostly personnel and personnel-connected expenditures. All but $17,250 go to personnel issues. The only increases you'll see are on the fringe, which is the Social Security, group insurance, and retirement, and I think everybody is affected by that. One correction we were able to finally verify last week from the comptroller's office at the state supplement portion of my salary is going to go up by $17,500. So the second line, $35,000, that should be adjusted to $52,500, and the $105,000 should correspondingly drop by that same amount. So the county share will go down. There's no change in the salary. It's just who's paying it. The state share will go up and the county share will go down. That being said, I don't have any other requests. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you

Thank you Jason.

Thank you sir.

Sheriff.

Thank you. Joseph Guy Baker, Sheriff of Jim Wills County. This passed down. The budget request. uh you'll turn to we'll just go over if you can turn the second page that's the uh lot items that that will will change uh either part uh this is for you for you to look at if you go to part two um the major cost uh drivers uh one of the biggest changes is prisoner detention The proposal is at $600,000. The current known through 824 is $1,439,379. But the straight line projection for 2026 is $2,226,158. My request is that $2 million, I think we can mitigate. I'm going to do my best to try to mitigate the rest of that. If you go back and we look, the increase in the amount of prisoners and inmates that we house has been increasingly rising. And that was before I took office, it was already on that rise. A lot of this is, none of this part of prisoner detention is discretionary or up to the sheriff or the sheriff's office. There's many other departments that contribute to this from everything from the DA's office to the courts to probation to MHMR referrals to transports for juvenile Probation. So this cost here includes many departments. And I think we're all doing our best to try to control these costs. But so these costs here, what I put into is they're non-discretionary. I have to take every inmate or every person arrested in the county. I can't refuse them at this point. Then they have to go through the criminal justice system. This is the major driving issue for the Sheriff's Office budget. This is put on my budget. It's the major driving issue. Secondly, if we look at the prisoner medical expenses, that's another thing. The proposal still sits at $150,000. The current known through 8-24-26 was 356,169. The straight line projection is looking at 550,855. My request is 450,000. This is inmate medical costs, and it's volatile. It's hard to forecast. I hope that it doesn't reach that amount. But I also don't want to use numbers that aren't actually connected to reality. Because at that point, it just makes my budget look like I'm not able to reach that. Then we look at deputy overtime. The deputy overtime really is kind of mislabeled and kind of what the deputy overtime really is holiday pay. There is no deputy overtime. In fact, for the 17 holidays that for this year that I had to pay for, the minimal staff that are actually scheduled to work that day is actually over the 50,000 that was scheduled for 2026. I've covered that cost. But if we look at the known cost of right now of 824, it was $59,652. This pacing will put it at $92,259. However, I'm only requesting $85,000. I think it can mitigate. We've been offsetting our schedules. We've been flexing schedules so that we don't have to work overtime. Just yesterday, we had two unattended deaths where CID had to go out. work after hours uh that was just yesterday this happens all the time uh and there but to say that there's any deputy overtime there's not that just that doesn't even cover the the 17 holidays that is uh given to all county employees i know that many departments they're off on the holiday But in our situation, we have to work. We have to work 24-7, 365 days a week. So just to cover the 17 holidays, this was in the negative by several thousand dollars. Dispatch overtime, again, the proposal is $20,000. It's asking for $25,000 based on projections We may have to be training a new dispatcher coming up. So whenever those vacancies are there, we still have to have somebody there answering the phone. Jailer overtime, the proposal was $154,954. Currently, we're at $156,398. That basis is at $241,887. I still think we can mitigate some of that, but I am going to ask for $200,000. So again, all of these requests are tied to 24-7 hour coverage, 365 days a year, particular to the Sheriff's Office and the way that we have to work. And the deputy overtime is still held at the same 2025 actual level. Then we have on number three, reoccurring hardware and software costs. So the sheriff's office for the hardware and software, we're asking for $173,913. These are reoccurring annual subscriptions that we pay for, that we have to have. Now, the proposed budget is $45,800. Now, this doesn't account for the hardware.

How are those getting paid for right now?

So these don't account for the software and the hardware that Asset Forfeiture already does pay for, that I pay for out of Asset Forfeiture funds. And most of those are coming out of that. But up until, let's see, July of, in July of 2026, the Sheriff's Office Asset Forfeiture Fund had already obligated in 2026 alone $927,978 of asset forfeiture funds. We buy all of our equipment. We buy all of our vehicles. We buy all of that kind of – a lot of that stuff out of asset forfeiture funds or grants. Some of these – so I have to – make sure that I take care of the obligations that I have for the future next couple of years. And some of the asset forfeiture funds, I've already submitted some of those. I think last year, it was over $3,450,000 of asset forfeiture funds that I already put into the budget for salaries and software and hardware and all that kind of stuff. And I want to continue to do that. But like the DA, Mr. Garcia, had explained, our asset forfeiture has been good this year. I've changed the way we approach asset forfeiture or interdiction investigations. That's been successful this year. I can't rely on that every year. But to say that I don't use the asset for venture funds to help out the county, I use as much of it as I possibly can. It is tax. Well, not tax. It is, I guess, it is the Jim Wells County citizens' money. So whether we seize it, whether it's in general funds or not, I use that money to improve our our vehicle structure to improve our facilities. I use that money to buy hardware and software. I use that money to buy equipment. I use that money to offset a lot of county expenses. That is, but that's my request.

I'm trying to make sense of this. How much are you asking for? What's the total? You have an executive summary, but I don't think that executive summary has the total amount that you're asking for.

$280,727. It's in the first page.

That's all? That's all you're asking for?

That is not counting the, no, because that would not be including the, let's see, the The prisoner detention definitely needs to come up from 600,000 to 2,000,000 because that we are definitely here.

The executive summary does not include the whole thing. Yes. So 280 on this page.

I'm sorry, $1,909,620. The difference between the county fiscal year 2027 proposal. That's including for the prisoner detention. If you look at the line below it.

Okay, that's including everything right there.

Yes, and then the only thing other than the prisoner detention, which I can't control, is that other number above it. The two driving costs are basically, as we know, and we've talked about this multiple times, prisoner detention and medical hospital housing. And those are things that have been increasing over the years. It's just something that, you know, that I don't, that other agencies, other departments also affect that line item budget, even though it's on my line item, it affects that budget. It's not something that is discretionary. It's not something that I can just say no to. And then on that, I'm sorry, I think I ended too soon. If you look at part four, These are unfunded requests. I don't know if I know some of these need to be taken care of during budget. These unfunded requests are just for future contingency planning. I'm not asking for more money, but I am asking for change in certain policies. One, allow overtime pay for our animal control officers. I will cover that through a different funding stream. Allow overtime pay for our jail nurse. I will pay for that through another funding stream, which is already on the budget. I will say, because we haven't been able to, we used to have a part-time nurse. We haven't been able to find one. We've been doing interviews for people. We put it out on Facebook. But it's just not enough money for us to find one. But right now, according to the county policy, she can only receive comp time. Well, that comp time is going to build up. And when we need her, if she's not there, then she goes, we have to send them to the hospital. That's going to cost us more money. So I would like to be able to pay her overtime. And then I would also like to allow overtime pay for all deputies to include those funded by contracts with our local schools. The way we instituted it last year, we're not able to pay Mr. Longoria and the other officers overtime. Sometimes when they're not at the school, they work for us on the road during the summer, which is a good thing because that's when most of your criminal mischief happens during the summertime when the kids are out of school. But they do work regular patrol during those times. And so I'd like that to be I'm not asking for more money, I'm just asking for me to be able to choose to pay them overtime through other means. I'm also asking for additional unfunded positions, two deputy positions and five additional correctional officers. And I have a justification there. The only reason I'm asking for that is because as I continue to plan on how to mitigate the budget and the prisoner detention and the transport, I wanna have those positions available now that if we decide we wanna, just for example, that if our model changes to where we can be more efficient and save money with a transport team, I wanna be able to be able to do that. But if we don't approve it during the budget cycle, then we can't add additional people, which limits me to what we can do to try to be more efficient. if that opportunity comes up.

MR. Sheriff, at this moment, are all correctional officer positions filled?

MR. At this moment, they are not, but we're looking to – we have interviewed people. That's a reoccurring thing. I think we are looking to – I just interviewed one other yesterday. He interviewed well, but we're looking to fill two more positions. We have had them throughout the year. They've been filled. Then people get more money or offer more money somewhere else, or they go to school to become a deputy or something like that. So, you know, but for the most part, we've held our staffing levels pretty well. But right now we have two open positions that we're trying to fill.

Cindy, with this... With these expenses, will you be able to give us an exact amount?

Yes. Do you, so is your, I have all the breakdown that you just went through, but are you wanting me to add those additional positions as consideration on this last page or?

Not for funding, just unfunding.

Not for funding, that's just, okay. Yeah. So just what you went over in the first.

Yes. Number four is just my request for unfunded positions in case we need them. to, there's a lot of contingency because there's some issues going on with other, let's just say people that we have contracts with. I don't, I'm not certain that those will last. I think they will. But if something were to happen with a contract, for example, with GO or one of our, Maverick County or whoever, Jim Hall County, I NEED TO HAVE THE FLEXIBILITY TO BE ABLE TO TRANSPORT OR TO BE ABLE TO MITIGATE THOSE ISSUES.

NEW SPEAKER P. FOR THIS BUDGET, YOU GOT ENOUGH INFORMATION TO GIVE US MORE OR LESS OF AN ESTIMATE OF WHAT WE'RE GOING TO INCREASE THE BUDGET WITH?

Yes, so I already have my rough estimates already. The only thing that I would need to update is going to be the fringe on the additional overtime.

We need to know exactly what the increase is going to be.

Yes, and once all the workshop requests have been asked for today, then I'll give you an update of all of the requests and if there's any fringe on top of it.

We need to have enough information for you to be able to determine that, right?

Yes, yes. And I believe this is suffice. And if I have any questions, I can give you a call.

Yeah, thank you, sir. Yeah, just.

I guess I'll get with Cindy and review it because my calculation doesn't add up to the 1.9. Okay, got it. All right, sure. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

All right. Thank you.

District Court.

Good morning, Court Judge Michael Garcia, District Judge for the 79th Judicial District, and I don't have any new requests, and I ask that the proposed budget for my department be approved. Thank you.

Thank you, Secretary.

JP's 1 through 6. JP1, I don't see him here.

He said he didn't have any requests.

No requests?

Yeah, that's correct. He did send me an email that he is not making any requests. That's for JP1.

Oh, he had a request?

No, he said he did not have any requests.

Yeah, he told me he didn't have any.

Good morning, Commissioners. I'm Judge Kadenim. Of course, JP, number six. First of all, I'd like to thank you guys for what you do. I know you guys have a hard job. I just want to let you know that I'm good with my budget as far as I'd like to have the same budget remaining for this coming year. And I appreciate all you guys. All right. Thank you very much.

Appreciate you.

And did you hear from anybody else? No, that was the only one. And my office didn't either, Frank, so we'll take that as no request.

I wanted to bring up on the JP's. I think four years ago, I think we had three JPs coming in four years ago, and all salaries were dropped to $50,000, all starting JPs at $50,000. And I'm looking at all the JPs. I'm not for sure how many we have coming in this year. How many? Just one? Two?

One. One.

Okay. And so what I'm looking at on the Beginning salaries is 54. So I'm wondering if that's going to be dropped to 50 as the beginning salaries of JPs.

So you're requesting for it to be dropped? Yes. OK. That's the only thing you can do? OK.

Anything else? Well, OK. And another thing would be the salary on the clerks. It was raised up to $87,000. And I'm thinking that right now, there's like one full-time clerk. Before, there was two and a half. two full times and a part time clerk. But that was when JP five was doing all we're doing truancy. Yes, all the truancy, which they aren't now. So that's been dropped. And so I mean, in order, you know, any way that there can that this this number can come down on the clerk's from 87 back when on 2025 was 32 nine. maybe not all, you know, drop it all the way to 32. But I mean, if it's not needed in the budget to add to the budget, you know, maybe if that could be dropped to 50, the salary for the clerks would be 50. And then the salary for the JP, like four years ago, all of them were taken down to 50. So to bring that up.

i think that point was brought up right um you you have the salary for that position right there's a part-time salary right yes um that so that particular uh department has of course the elected official two full-time and one part-time so that makes up the 87 000 that commissioners uh requesting so that's the breakdown of it so i'm not is your specific request to

A full-timer or the part-timer?

I would say a kind of full-timer, because the job's being done with a full-time clerk.

In other words, you think that they're overstaffed. I do. That's what you're saying.

I would recommend leaving a full-time, whether the guy coming in, and then he's got that budget there for it.

But if not, maybe a full and a part-time if needed. But I don't see any reason for two full-time. I don't. I'm there. I see it.

Any more requests on the JPs?

So it's going to be good. We reduce it to one full time, one full time, one part time. That's the request.

Yeah. Nothing else for the other JP offices? County treasurer?

Morning, Judge, Commissioners, Mark Dominguez, Jim West, County Treasurer. I have reviewed the proposed budget and I have no request.

Thank you, Mark. Thank you, sir.

County judges' budgets. Veterans, no request. Emergency management, no request. Non-departmental, I do have a couple of requests there. Mr. David Guerrero, our district clerk, mentioned the case management system. We usually took the case management system out of contract and maintenance. We had Fort View, which we took out $26,000. We upgraded all our court case management systems to iDocket. Now all our courts and our clerks and judges use one court management system and the county attorneys. and the attorneys, district and county. We use one case management system, more efficient. One thing that I think is going to be a great asset to all of us because it is going to be more efficient, that's going to cost us $90,000, Cindy? $94,000? $98,500. 98,500. So that 98,500 is going to come out of the contract maintenance. It's 26,000 that was previously used for Court View is going to supplement the $98,000. So the request is to increase that by, what was the total amount, Cindy? $68,200? Yes.

That would be the offset to budget for that good system.

Just for the court's information, The previous two years and or the crossover from the Court View to IDOCIT was paid through ARPA funds. So this is the first year that we're going to actually assume full payment of that. And that's minus Court View. So the request is $68,200. The next one is child safety payments. We usually get those from our tax assessor collector. And then we pay those out to each entity. This year, we paid out $32,600. That's $600 more than we have budgeted. So for next year, I wanted to add $1,000 to that. That's it for the non-departmental. County court, no changes. Election, no changes. Information technology, we do have changes.

Good morning, Judge, Commissioner. I'm Robert Silva from IT department. As already requested, one light item increase is a maintain the hardware software. The reason I'm requesting increase because IT department provided software support for email, website, other tools like the PDF software because now the county is switching to a new software like iDocu, some of them are using cloud-based system. So I want to make sure we continue to support them with the right software they needed. I know that there have been changes like the state of Texas is changing the requirement for the website and like the ADA compliance, we have to be ADA compliant on the website. So they have requested to increase the purchase of the ADA software tool. They're maintaining the website. I have to break it down, the budget, other software as well. So, yes.

Is all those things you mentioned, there's a few more? Is that part of the $292,000? Yeah. $276,000 that you're requesting? Yeah, that's the one item I'm requesting for right now.

I don't know.

Do I have the budget? 292,876. That's correct. Is this the same one basically what we submitted for the grant?

Yes, pretty much.

And we did hear from the grant. We did not get this grant for cybersecurity, basically. That's what the grant was under, cybersecurity. And we did not get this grant. So we do have to.

Yeah, we're going to have one question.

I have, Robert, everything that you have here. We absolutely need every single one of these things for next year. Or can we break it down?

It's really part of we have to have use it. We can not mention the cybersecurity because we need to have a cybersecurity protection for us and. you know we're still working with core recon and i want to ask you to continue the core recon to help people with the cyber security and mitigation plan um i know there was several options uh I was hoping that we got the grant, but if we didn't, that we got the grant, we would do a purchase for one year. But now there's another option I consider is a long-term mitigation plan, which is possibly purchase lease software or server, you know, pay upfront. We can finance through lease option. So I was considering something like that. Like for the server, we've got to have to upgrade server not for the courthouse, for the service department. And also we need to unify our email system because currently we're separate. We want to make sure we have it together and change our domain to .gov. We have to use .gov. So the sheriff has a .gov. So I want to use their domain. that we can integrate together now with that better channel the communication with them. And I want to also provide support for the search department, software, which like Microsoft or cybersecurity, potentially we need to find that as well. So those are the critical one.

OK, so the request is $292,876. Cindy, I guess we could talk about other avenues if we don't fund it totally. OK, is that it? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Sure, Robert.

Pretty sure. I'm sure. I know there's potential increase, but it isn't necessary. We have to have it.

Thank you, Robert. Thank you, Robert. Thank you, Robert.

Courthouse and buildings, I just have one. We have rental of space. We don't have no money in there. I wanted to put $10,000 in there. We may have a couple of contracts. I know one for sure coming up. We need to make sure that if there's any changes on those contracts that we do have funds to supplement it. So that our courthouse and buildings, that's rental of space. That's $10,000. City County Airport, no change. Emergency Medical Services, no change. 911 Coordinator, no change. Safety, no change. Vector, no change. Human Services, no change. Community Center, no change. City County Library, no change. Parks and Recreation, no change. Views, no change. Airgrounds, no change. Economic Development, no change. Grant Administrator, no change. County agent. County agent. He's got his own. Yeah, he's a little bit further down the line. He's further down the line, almost.

Yeah, right here. Oh, you need to look at that .

Juvenile Probation Department.

Morning, Judge, Commissioners.

Morning. I appreciate our budget. I would like to ask... Number one on prevention and intervention supplies. I was budgeted 3,000. I would like to see if we could add another $3,000 to that. Part of the reason is we do purchase toothpaste, soap, things like that, shampoos for some of the kids that just don't have Don't have the money or the reason to do that and also another thing the state. The juvenile justice department has changed some of their regulations to where some of the different things we're going to have to do, and one of them is we all have to get a. cpr and first aid training which of course we'd have to pay for because they've changed it to where say we want to take a kid home from the office or we want to do community service and we usually get the kids to meet us at the office and take them wherever in the van well they won't let us do that anymore unless we're trained in cpr and first aid training so i'd like to add that to that too so i am requesting if possible 3 000 more for that Also, prevention and intervention supplies. And then medical services, y'all are proposing budget of $2,000. If possible, I'd like to add another $1,500 to $2,000 for that. We do have kids that are in detention and they have to go to the doctor or whatever we have to pay and those costs have gone up somewhat too.

Which one, 15 or 2,000?

2,000. And lastly, repairs of equipment. Proposed budget is 500. I'd like to increase that to 2,500 if possible because we would use that monies to like vehicle maintenance and stuff like that. And that is it basically. We did. We're doing very well, I will say. I don't know, again, the state is still looking at this. They're talking about a possible 3% cut in salaries. And all of our, except for one secretarial position, are paid with state monies. And if they cut us at 3%, yeah, I know it's not a whole lot, but 3%, 3%. Maybe I could come back later and see if we could cover that with some of the other funds like detention money. Honestly, I hate to say it, knock on wood, but our Caseloads have gone down. Our arrests have gone down. So we haven't had to detain near as many kids as we have, say, last year. And of course, the thing some of these kids are doing is a lot worse, where we are having to detain them, but we haven't had as many. So hopefully we did pretty good this year, and hopefully we'll save money for detention also again. And residential, sometimes we get money back from the state, which we apply for that with every kid that goes to residential. And sometimes we don't even have to pay for that. We get the money reimbursed by the state. But that's it. Thank you all very much.

Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you.

COMMUNITY SUPERVISION DEPARTMENT?

Ruben Valerio director for the adult probation office. We are requesting an increase to our general's county pretrial bond contribution of 37,000, and this is to alleviate or. help with the rising cost of the employees that are covered under that fund their insurance their training and possibly hiring another bond supervision officer due to the increase in bond cases i believe we're like 1400 right now and it's being covered by four officers and what's what's the request thirty seven thousand thirty seven thousand that's all we have thank you thank you county agent

Good morning, Judge.

Board of Commissioners, Rogelio Mercado, County Extension Agent. Again, I want to thank you all. I have this opportunity to thank you all for your continued support throughout the year of our extension programs, our 4-H program, and everything that you all do to support our county fair. So thank you all in advance as we're starting to approach that time of the year again. I echo Judge Cadena's comment. Y'all have a hard task to follow, so I'll be very brief, and I've got a very small and soft request of $500 to our extension vehicle line item, and that would be just a simple request. because of fuel prices. It reflects the increase in fuel prices. So $500 only. And that's, like I said, a soft and small request in that. Again, thank you all for your continued support.

Thank you, Rogelio. Thank you, sir.

We've gone through all the county departments. Did we miss anybody? I don't think we missed anybody. County commissioners one through four.

I have another request.

I have no request.

No request. No, sir. Can you repeat that?

He said I have no request.

Anybody else?

No request.

No request. No request.

Did we miss anybody? Did we miss anybody? Speak now or forever hold your peace. Okay.

Cindy, whenever you get all the numbers, can you email me the results?

Yes, I will tell you everything and then I'll send everybody the request hopefully by the end of the today. Thank you.

Anyone like to address the court at this time?

We do have a task ahead of us. And all the departments that had limited requests or no requests, thank you all very much for taking into consideration the financial situation we're in right now. I'm not going to say it's a dire situation. The only dire situation we do have is with the Sheriff's Department. And I know I want to take this time to thank all the departments who work tirelessly, including the Sheriff's Department, county attorney, district attorney, all the judges and their staff who we have come and we have met here. almost on a weekly basis, monthly basis for sure, to try to address the ongoing jail issue. And I know they're doing everything they can to suppress some of that, some of those costs. We're going to move forward on getting the evaluation on jail. We'll be awarding that contract Friday. And we'll get started on that. Meanwhile, those costs still are not going to stop. The costs are still going to be there. I know we're going to... dot our I's and cross our T's to make sure that we are holding as many offenders as we can here in our county, Joe. I know some numbers from the past. For example, last year, I think we were housing like 74. In August this year, we're holding no more than 40. So we have to get to the bottom of why exactly why that's happening. We haven't got to the bottom of that. And we need to because that's a drastic change. And being that we are getting that evaluation, whether the recommendation is a new jail or the recommendation is to expand or to remodel, whatever that recommendation is, We still got to be doing everything we can to hold as many offenders as we can here in our county jail and cut those costs. Quite frankly, I did get a call from the new Maverick County judge, and they're going through some serious, serious budget downfalls. And he asked me to look at the contract again that it's already been approved by both commissioners courts, and that contract is. We fulfilled 2 payments already back in March 250,000. Just right now we sent them another 250,000. In March, we need to send them another $250,000. That's March of 2027. And then in September, the rest. But they're going through a harder situation than we are. God bless us. We do have a good budget right now. But like I said, the Sheriff Department issue, jail issue can eat that up pretty quick. So my point is I am going to get with our county attorney or our county auditor and see if there's anything we can do aside from the contract because contracts are signed, however they're asking for their money. So they're doing us a big favor by allowing us to have that contract. However, it's a little different on our part because it's not just only us. We do have to contact our CPA, our financial advisors, and how that can affect us. But I do want to say that it is effectiveness. And that one mistake, it's really creating havoc. I just mentioned earlier before the commissioner's court and before the budget workshop that we're doing everything we can possibly to keep that tax rate where it's at right now. Because what an issue like that causes, it causes the issue last year, it causes the current issue, and it causes next year's. It affects three budgets now. And by golly, I hope it don't affect the tax rate. That's how serious it is. So that being said, one more time, We've heard from everybody, all the departments, correct? Okay. We can go ahead and move forward. Can I entertain a motion? Motion to adjourn. Second. I have a motion and a second to adjourn. Is there any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Thank you all very much.