Commissioners Court - Regular Meeting

Jennifer, thank you for your leadership. I really appreciate all the work that you do. And I know it takes a team and you have a wonderful team here in front of us today. And just thank you for all the work that you do to ensure that our voting process goes smoothly. We really and truly appreciate everything that you do.

And thank you, Jennifer, for your leadership and for all the election poll workers for coming in early, staying long hours, staying late. It does not happen without you and your dedication. And I do hope that more young people get involved, because that would be fabulous if we can get everyone excited about elections and do their part. It is a civic duty, I feel. But we can't have these elections without everyone's help and support. completely just thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything. Commissioner Hammer.

Of course all these people showed up. It's you. You're amazing. You're amazing at everything. The connections you make at the legislature. We are so lucky and blessed to have such a great elections administrator and I think everyone in this room will 100% agree with that. Exercising our right to vote is what makes America, America. Thank you all so much for all that you do. You guys put in long hours. Y'all do a lot to make sure that we have safe, secure elections. My favorite thing is the secure, efficient, trustworthy elections because we trust in that system. to elect the people that we ele

Beautiful. Commissioner? Enjoy August. We all know what's coming. I can't say thank you enough. What I think a lot of people don't understand is, number one, the hours that go into a regular election, but everything that goes into the preparation and everything that comes before it. And I say that, whether that's picking up elections equipment and setting up polling locations, the days are, you know, the days before election tearing it down. I will tell you the worst is the night of a general election because you have used to we had our primary caucuses in the same location an hour later or ho

Commissioner Smith, would you like to start this conversation? Whenever I was at A&M, I would go back to my home county and work as an election worker every single election. And I really got a view of not only how the election worked, but all the process that went into it. I can't say thank you enough. I think you're getting a unique perspective and not just showing up to vote every day, but knowing what goes into the process. And I think you are going to be very well set in life if you decide to pursue a career related to government and knowing those things, because you would you will have a

Well, as a bobcat, not as an Aggie. There you go. Just kidding. But no, I went to school there, and what y'all are doing is, it's so great because I was in school, and all I could think about was get out of school, get done, and start my job, right? But y'all are taking it a step further. You're reaching out of your comfort zone, and you're going out, and you're doing great work. and you're getting to see firsthand what that's like, right? You just saw all of these election workers come in here and, I mean, what support that they had from this county. So thank you for all that you guys are doi

Well, thank you so much for participating in this program. I'm glad to see that you see the importance of this work. And I hope that you are sharing your experiences with your friends and your fellow students, just expressing how important it is to be involved. I mean, we all need to be involved in these spaces to make a difference in your community, right? So you're starting to do that work, and I applaud you for that, and thank you very much for doing that. Thank you, Judge.

Yeah, I just want to thank you all also. I mean, it really is refreshing to see your dedication and willingness to participate in the election process. And what's even more amazing to me that it's all young women doing it. And so thank you all so much. Okay, yes, but y'all are the future, and we really appreciate what you're doing. Thank you so much.

Rose Brooks would be proud, wouldn't she?

Yes, Judge. Dr. Shatay Ashford Hanson is here today, and I'd like to let her come up at the opening.

Yeah, thank you, Judge. Chitae, I just want to, you know, I remember meeting you for the very first time. It was at a ribbon cutting. And I knew then that you were a very special person. And I just really appreciate all the work that you have done to help improve and advance the well-being of Hays County residents. And so I just, you know, what you just shared and said, it means a lot that you're working to help our communities. And so thank you so much.

Commissioner. Dr. Ashford, it's so good to see you again. And I don't know if anybody knows what a beautiful singing voice she has when I get to see her speak. A couple months ago, she opened up her speech with a song, and I was so blown away by that moment, but it was so wonderful, and I admire the work that you do. Leadership is also my passion, trying to elevate leaders, give them the skills that they need to be able to be good leaders. And so I appreciate the work that you're doing and continuing to do in supporting our leaders coming up into the community, because they do need that suppor

The fellowship that you have surrounding you, that's amazing. I'm all about network and bringing everyone to the table. I mean, Breaking Bread is a great name for an organization. I also do believe that doing all things with Jesus or with a faith-based intention is so important because the serving others aspect, strengthening local organizations, I mean, In my opinion, that's what I believe in big church, small government, and I think that that is y'all are doing great work, and you're getting out to the community and doing just that. Thank you.

I couldn't agree with Commissioner Hammer more. We're each called in a different way, and I think that sometimes that connection between faith and fellowship and governance and the things that we do is sometimes overlooked or disparaged, and I think to work in organizations like yourself, there really is a place for groups of faith to work hand in hand with government and with their community in other ways that people may not think of. And so I'm always impressed to see someone who's actually stepping out and doing the work because it is a hard job to bring those two different entities togethe

I want to thank Commissioner Inglesby for co-sponsoring this with me. And I think if you polled the folks in this courtroom, everyone has been touched by someone who had an overdose in their life. The small rural community I grew up in had never really seen methamphetamines until I went to high school in the 90s. And it became an epidemic in about a year and a half. We had multiple overdoses within our community. And it really completely reshaped the place I grew up. And nothing scared me worse whenever I came into office is when we started to see the fentanyl deaths, especially in the Hays Co

I mean... What y'all deal with, it's something that I, like, some of these things I can kind of relate to in some certain way. Like, I have no idea. I mean, thank goodness that we have people like you guys to be able to do these prevention, these education, all of these things. Because, I mean, I break down every time I hear Janelle Rodriguez tell her story about Noah and what happened with him in the Forever 15 project. but those things are so powerful, because her having to relive that constantly is so, that would be probably the hardest thing for someone to have to do, but from, as a mom, I

Ms. Salinas center core, uh, our health department, our sheriff's department, commissioner Smith. Uh, thank you for all the work that y'all have done. Um, fentanyl has been, you know, definitely something that's been very present in Hays County. And there's been a lot of groups trying to do the right thing and trying to bring awareness to this and, you know, Janelle Rodriguez. So for 15, that's a perfect example of someone who has. shared her story. And it's so brave of her to share that story and for her to continue to advocate at a national level for this disease. And it also goes back to me

Yeah. Well, Judge, I, too, just want to thank you all for the work that you do. I know it can be a very long and exhausting process, but it's a vital and important service that is needed, and I just appreciate your willingness to just continue to carry the message forward. But I think we all are responsible to spread the word and the awareness. You know, we all have a responsibility. But I want to also thank the Sheriff's Office, Matthew and his staff. Janelle was mentioned, I think, by every court member. You know, she's an awesome person and, you know, is sharing what she needs to share and

Can I say one thing really quick? Sorry. I know that we talked about thank you to Matthew and his office and thank you to the sheriff's office and Hippolito. And then we also said something about former Sheriff Gary Cutler. Mark Andrews is also a huge part of all of this outreach. And I just want to make sure that he got the thanks that he deserves because he works every day hard on this. Beautiful.

Thank you. I would agree. And I've sat through a number of these. I was at Janelle's second presentation. ever. And to say that she has progressed and what she's done, it would not do justice to what her and Anthony put together in that first presentation. But the one thing that I would draw, I know there's been several of us who've mentioned Narcan up here. You know, we had one student at, I was shocked in some of those presentations when I heard that we had students walking around with Narcan in their pocket because they just expected that there would be an overdose. And where it hit home fo

So I just, you know, I appreciate the effort every year. I appreciate the win last year, but I have to tell you, I think there might be a lady sitting right in front of me who's going to take you down. She's wanting her trophy back. I don't know if the auditor's office has plans yet this year, but how many years in a row did the auditor's office win? Four? Yes.

So I think there's a friendly competition brewing there. And also, you know, it's real Texas chili. It has to be red meat, no chicken, and no beans. So I'm happy you're doing that. But in all seriousness, I can't say thank you enough for all the folks who work with us. I don't think that there's an understanding until you go through a disaster like we did in 2015, like we did in 2019, like we did in 2021, as to how many organizations we have in our county that are either based here or their personnel live here and work in our general area on disaster recovery and relief. And just response as w

I MAY BE GIVEN A HARD TIME, BUT I HAVE TO HAVE BEANS IN MY CHILI. I KNOW, I KNOW. I'M SORRY. THANK YOU. IT HAS TO BE HEARTY.

ANYWAYS, FURTHER THE POINT, I DO BELIEVE EMERGENCY PREPARING IS SO IMPORTANT AND SO CRUCIAL, ESPECIALLY TO THE WEST PART OF THE COUNTY. I KNOW THAT COMMISSIONER SMITH AND I PROBABLY EXPERIENCE THE MOST NATURAL DISASTERS AND THINGS OF THAT NATURE. Thank you guys for all that you do to bring in these vendors, to make people, I mean, someone can go through the emergency preparedness fair and they could quite literally get all of the supplies that they need there, take them home and have those in a kit. I know that's what I did. So, I mean, me being in the middle of it and in the thick of it, I've

I appreciate it Thank you, mr. Jones for Hosting this event again. It's a fabulous event I've enjoyed it the last three or four years and it's been wonderful I mean families can come and they can learn about just different areas of disaster as Emergency preparedness and get the you know, the supplies and information that they need I mean, I remember in when the ice storm happened We were trying to figure out how do we get water from the west side to the east side, right? And all of that really touched people's lives. And I always said, disaster is kind of like my jam. I really like really digg

Yeah, Mike, thank you and your staff. I really appreciate all that you do and our community partners that really, you know, pitch in and volunteer and do all the work alongside y'all. I mean, and it's wonderful to know that we are preparing our residents for that next disaster. It's unfortunate that it has to happen, but, you know, it will. And the more prepared that we are, the better off that we will be. And so thank you all for all the work that you do. Very much appreciated.

Judge, the one group that we didn't mention today that I would be remiss if we didn't mention was our CERT. Our cert team citizens of emergency response team They're average citizens here in the county that have gone through training that work directly with our emergency response folks and whether it's a wildfire on the west side or an evacuation or just a house fire and we've got first responders there and

Yeah, so we have Tim Patek here with the City of Wimberley. So this ILA is going to be, I mean, we identified the Blue Hole Nature Center in Wimberley as one of the projects for the 2020 park bond. So this is just to engage in further talks and move it along the process.

I'd like to hear him finish out this and then hear from the rest of the presenters today. And then we can get down into some real numbers.

I have one question as well. And forgive me, but can you go back to the previous slide one more? Okay, so the two options that we looked at in the last budget workshop, the cost for this is significantly lower than either one of them. I mean, significantly lower. Does this include both civilian and, I assume this includes both civilian and elected? I'll defer to Scott on that bottom 2.5 million.

If I'm reading this correctly, I'm saying that they already, are you talking about this 2.5? Yeah. Yeah, I think that this is in addition to what they recommended.

No, I understand that, but both of the other options last time were significantly higher than that.

Well, no. HR recommendations for civilian pay in our last budget workshop for full market alignment were $6.49 million. And for phased market alignment, it was $4.874. This is at, if we have two set aside already, This is at 2329, so that's $500,000 less, $400,000 less, or $500,000 less than either of the other two options?

Okay, so it's the 40% that we're missing.

If you go back to where it says a 60% phase.

Right, I'm just... It's okay. Ask away, buddy. That's why we're here. No, I'm just working through numbers and seeing where I can get, and I appreciate it. I just needed to know if this included both elected and civilian employees. And it sounds like it does.

Sure. So I'll, I'll just be direct. I'm going to be offering a budget amendment today to do a direct review of both the JP's and the constable's offices. I know that there is additional civil service in one. Y'all do much more than any other of the precincts. Looking at how many officers for civil service and how many other officers for enforcement, each of the, and for bailiff duty, each of the individual each of the individual constable offices had, but then also looking at what the timetable for that is. In other words, precinct three may have the lowest, but geographically they're driving

Go ahead. I completely echo what he's saying. Just to be able to know what does each paper, how many hours per person, or what does that look like? It would just give us some really great...

So I'm going to wrap that up really quick. So help me help you, right? If you guys can start tracking productivity, like what are your SOPs? What are your standard operating procedures on each of what you have to do? Walk us through that so we can help you justify why you will need more people. And, I mean, it will make sense at the end of the day, but right now we – we have a, we're not able to see that transparency just through these numbers, right? We need a little bit more data and a little bit more work on your end. And I know it's not easy. Everything is very different, but we can take a

Well, thank you, Constable Pearson, for coming to speak today. You know, I can recollect, you know, We're growing and your department's growing. The area that you serve is growing. And so you've always kind of come back to ask for officers every year. And I understand that. But my hope is that, you know, with the strategic plan of pillars, you know, one of them is criminal justice modernization, that my hope is our investment into that will help some of the front end stuff that cause y'all are dealing with things when they're already happening. You know, the JP's courts are full of eviction, j

Thank you, Judge. So, Constable, thank you for being here. And I think, you know, just like my colleague said, I think that we just want to get a better understanding. I mean, I know that you present every year. You do a great job. You provide us the numbers. But, you know, the time that it takes also, if we can start preparing all of those statistics, getting them to us, and so we can have a better understanding on, you know, what does trigger? What's the number of civil process that triggers an additional deputy? And I think once we, you know, have a better idea of what that looks like i thi

Well, I mean, I just want to ensure because the presentation that was given, we do have the justice clerk in there. for three different JPs. And then the part-time juvenile diversion coordinator, I think we have the funding for that. And Candace, even if we use the temporary fund for that, can that be a year-long program? FUNDING SOURCE FOR THAT POSITION?

Well, thank you, Judge Bryant, for your data. I mean, I know you always come prepared with all the facts, and I definitely appreciate that. And I think that in this budget this year, you know, we are – we hear you, you know, we have heard you all year and not just you, others, the support you need. And I know that y'all are on the front lines of everything that's going on in our community. You know, I forget who said it, but you're there when it's, you know, some of the worst times in a family's situation. So I appreciate that work. It's definitely a special skill set that JPs do. And I defini

So, just hitting things real, I think that your office did a great job presenting the bilingual skill set. I do think, you know, having additional skill sets that go outside the realm of what we're asking for should be compensated. I mean, even with the JOHNSON COUNTY FOR THEIR FY26 OF $50 A MONTH. THOSE ARE THINGS THAT WE CAN DEFINITELY, I FEEL LIKE, IMPLEMENT TO ENCOURAGE THINGS OF THAT NATURE. WHEN IT COMES TO THE OTHER POSITIONS, I APPRECIATE ALL THE TIME AND THE WORK THAT YOU PUT INTO JUSTIFICATION AND THE NUMBERS AND ALL OF THOSE THINGS. I DID HAVE A COUPLE QUESTIONS. I'M SURE DANIEL WOU

244 minutes. I knew he was going to have the exact.

Okay, that's why I like the idea of a full-time Yeah, I mean with his case.

No, I do believe, and I know that Daniel made comment during public comment portion, which I thought was really beneficial to hear, is, you know, statutorily, what do we do? From a county perspective, I think we need to look at what we statutorily are required to do and make sure that we're doing those things with, you know, utmost efficiency and delivering those great quality products to our clients, or clients, constituents.

A couple of points. The first one is the employees from 2-1 and 2-2 who were here this morning, we've discussed bilingual pay in the past. And the questions that we've always had are justice clerks are not unique to the JP's office, right? We've got justice clerks in the clerk's office.

I'm not disagreeing with that. But in our job descriptions, we have forward-facing clients or forward-facing employees in the tax office, in the county clerk's office, in the district clerk's office. And each one of those, we had made a decision in the past, if we were going to review it, we want to review that for all of those forward-facing offices. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you are bilingual in the tax office or in the JP's office, they're both a function of the county that If we are going to incentivize, we need to create something that is equalized across those.

OK. That was my question as far as the breakdown as well. One final question, and again, I'm I'm recommending I want to see numbers that can benefit you. And I've spoken to, like I said, a majority of the JPs now. Everybody makes their sausage different. And I don't want to get into how your office runs versus somebody else's office versus I want to give you the ability to run your office the way you want to. But in doing so, we have to have some consistency amongst the offices when it comes to things that are prevalent in each one. Again, no one's going to have as many call outs in the middle

Okay, I appreciate it. Just for clarification, Each one of the ISDs, I think every one of the ISDs at this point, have adopted a policy related to, again, the majority of the cases are vaping and those kind of things. Up until three years ago, four years ago, it was not a problem, and they were not referring any of those cases to the JP's offices. Now there is a policy in place, a district-wide policy in each one of those districts as to how to address those. Because to his point, you might have three high schools and two principals had a different view of how to do it than a third principal,

Yes. And it is in the recommended budget, Judge. And so I fully support that. And thank you for providing all this information to us. I think it's helpful as we move forward into the future. Sure.

No, I fully support the request. And like I said, I see the number of people that come into the office, so I definitely understand that. So thank you for being here. Thank you.

Commissioner? No, thank you very much for all of these numbers. This is a great breakdown. Do you have, like, about how long each of these take?

And do you have any, I mean, I just want to know, because I know every department's very different. We have a lot of different technology and services, ERP systems, those types of things. Does it log, like, how long each call takes? Does it give you that data?

Is it like, did it have a CRM built into it? Customer Relationship Management. Relationship Manager. Mm-hmm. Like, good. IDEAS LIKE THIS PERSON CALLED, THIS WAS THEIR CALL. SO THEY CAN TAKE NOTES, YES. YES, EXACTLY.

THAT'S GOOD. IF YOU CAN GIVE ME THAT DATA, I WOULD LOVE THAT. COMMISSIONER SMITH?

I just want to say thank you to your employees for everything they do. I don't know that they get that a lot from us up here. It's the silent... It's the silent army of folks that we have facing people every day that makes our county work. And at the end of the day, nobody is happy when they walk into the tax office. It's one of the hardest jobs that we have. As someone who stole one of your employees as his executive assistant, I told her that upset constituents were nothing compared to working in the tax office. So I appreciated her. I will say this. The numbers that you presented are great.

Thank you for coming up and thank you for advocating for those. Of course.

Yeah. Daphne, thank you so much for being here and that program, I think, is worthy of.

Is it okay if I just correct something just for the public to understand? Because she said that we're 70% to 80% below market. it's 70 to 80% of the people that are below. I just wanted to make that very clear. Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, no, you're good. I think you know what you were trying to, I just didn't want to, I'm like, whoa, that's really low.

I AGREE WITH YOU ON THE FULL IMPLEMENTATION OF OPTION TWO. I'M GLAD Y'ALL WERE ABLE TO WORK OUT YOUR DIFFERENCES WITH THE BUDGET OFFICE. AFTER YOUR PRESENTATION LAST WEEK, ONE OF THE THINGS, I MENTIONED PRESERVATION AND SOME OF THOSE KIND OF THINGS AND THE CONTRACT WORK, I'M GLAD Y'ALL WERE ABLE TO WORK THROUGH THAT AND FIND WHERE THAT FUNDING WAS. SO I'M ACTUALLY, DO YOU HAVE A TIMELINE ON WHEN WE'LL BE, WHEN WE WILL FINISH, LIKE TRULY FINISH THE PROJECT?

One of the reasons I asked that, and I mentioned this before, but I would love on behalf of the county at some point for us to be able to have, once all those are digitized, I think one of the lacking points that we have as commissioners as statutory road commissioners, is understanding where all of our property is. I've found multiple properties in Hays County that are not listed on, they're not listed in the CAD, they're not listed in anything but deed records. And given the fact that there's AI technology out there now that could review those, I've had multiple property owners come in and s

No, thank you for presenting, and thank you for understanding where we're at in our budget process. We appreciate that and the deferrals that you did make. I know that the regrades, the staff attorney, I'm writing everything, the auditor, TO STAFF ATTORNEY, IS THAT CORRECT?

So that's pretty much all that you're asking for in terms of extra dollars to go into it? Okay, good. I just wanted to make sure that we got a full understanding because the deferrals that you were making were not in the recommended? Correct. Correct. Okay. Just making sure. Thank you.

Well, thank you for reconciling with Scott and doing that extra work. That really is helpful, I think, for us. if some of those conversations can be had and it can be figured out, you know, behind the scenes. And you come and tell us, like, this was perfect, actually. Hearing that, yeah, you did a great job. And thank you for praising Eric. He's working hard over there for us.

THANK YOU, CYNTHIA. I REALLY APPRECIATE I GUESS YOUR UNDERSTANDING ALSO AS COMMISSIONER HAMMER EXPRESSED THE DEFERRALS, YOU KNOW, AND IT'S GREAT SEEING YOU, ELAINE. IT'S BEEN A WHILE AND GLAD THAT YOU'RE STILL AROUND AND HERE. BUT, YES, I REALLY APPRECIATE IT AND WILL TAKE IT ALL INTO CONSIDERATION. I THINK IT'S, YOU KNOW, I MEAN, YOU'RE NOT ASKING FOR ANY ADDITIONAL AND SO THANK YOU FOR UNDERSTANDING.

Is this per day, per week, per month? This is per day. Per day.

Yeah, I mean, gosh, thank you for being here and sharing all of that. I mean, it's truly an important program that we have, and I hear the plea for additional help that's needed, and so we'll certainly look into the funding of this. And, yeah, thank you for the work that you do.

Thank you. How long have you been in this position now, Daniel?

And you're the first person ever to be in this position?

The second person? Oh, that's right. The first person. Okay. Okay. So, like everything you're saying, like, I get it. I mean, I, you know, I know Hayes ISD is one of the biggest schools. It's the biggest employer of Hayes County. Y'all are busy. I do see that. And You know, and I believe in in making those investments. I mean, that's something that we in our strategic plan that we're considering. I mean, it's part of our, you know, our moral compass is investing in the future. This is that we are behind the ball in a lot of ways in this county. And we're trying to do our very best to to catch

That amount of data and exactly how you broke it down is 100% what I want to see for almost every single position. That was incredible. Big fan of that and being able to justify why new positions are important. I like how you said from a statutory standpoint what services that we have, and this is something that we are required to do statutorily. So it's important, and I appreciate all the effort that you put into that. Thank you.

Probably the best presentation we've seen. I'll just be honest with you. I appreciate you taking to heart what I said in the last two budget workshops about really dialing down into what the need is. And I know that we have other positions statutorily that we're looking at to try to address some of those state mandates. And it's hard. Honestly, as I said, I anticipate a budget amendment later today. I probably would have included this had I had that presentation prior, and I would imagine that I would support an additional, at least one full-time employee in our next budget discussion.

Actually, Judge, I have a, to kind of set the stage for our final conversation next week, I have a budget amendment I'd like to propose, which addresses a number of the which addresses a number of the concerns that have been expressed in the budget workshops over the last three weeks. And as an overall amendment to the budget, again, it's a starting point. It increases the tax rate by exactly one cent, and then it tries to address some of the major concerns that we discussed. If I'd had some of the background and some of the items today, I think that they probably would have been included in t

All of our employees or all of our department heads came in and they specifically referenced adoption of either some employee pay raise or pay recalibration. After consulting with our HR department, seeing the two options that were given to us last week, REALLY THE PRIORITY I WANTED TO EXPRESS WAS COMPETITIVE EMPLOYEE SALARIES AND WORKFORCE RETENTION. CURRENTLY THERE'S PROPOSED IN THE BUDGET $2 MILLION. THIS AMENDMENT FOR THOSE EMPLOYEE RETENTION AND SALARY INCREASES, IF WE WENT WITH OPTION TWO AS IDENTIFIED BY THE by the HR department and budget under our last meeting. The difference in expen

It's payment. That's why I said payment.

Yeah. Oh, I didn't hear you say payment. Oh, no, you're good. It's at a lower payment. Lower payment. I understand that. It is not 100% of the technology that they've asked for, but it does have majority as well as it does have, correct me if I'm wrong, but it does have the translation in it.

SURE. Let me finish walking through this and then I'll be more than happy to take questions on any of it. It also includes specifically the county court at law's request for an associate judge. And along with that, the DA's office has requested a mental health attorney to to help help to specifically help address the needs of that court. One of the questions that I had was if that associate judge was appointed, what were the other ramifications of that? Another attorney would be needed on the DA side, and more specifically, there would be some upgrades or retrofits needed for the space that mi

Yeah, I mean, well... I mean, I can tell you what I feel that I agree with, but I also want, Scott, is there any way to put your slide back up of the people that you were recommending in your budget?

Is there any way we can get copies of that?

Oh, yeah. Do you want to have Sylvia printed?

It would be nice to have. I mean, I think this is nice to have. I also really would like the HR presentation, too. I think that's a good... Well, I guess it would be all on this one.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Do we want to wait, Judge, for a minute?

Well, what I was going to say, Judge, is that, you know, I really like... the positions that Scott presented to us. But I will say that on your presentation, Commissioner, I can support the law enforcement elected officials to, which is the sheriffs and constables, to their current adopted salary or 1% higher than the highest paid law enforcement employee. I can support that.

I also would support the JP22 juvenile diversion coordinator going from that part-time or temporary time to a full position, one full.

DO WE WANT TO DEDICATE THAT SPECIFICALLY TO 2-2 OR SHOULD WE DO TO 5?

HOWEVER, THEY JUST PRESENTED IT SO I JUST SAID THAT. HOWEVER THAT IS ALLOCATED.

HE'S SUPPORTING ALL OF THEM. IT'S JUST THAT HE REPORTS TO JUDGE MENDOZA. this other full-time position can report to another JP versus, well, versus just the same one. I don't know. I mean, whatever makes sense with the JP's, but.

Commissioner, would it be easier if we just look through each individual item and you can tell me whether or not you would support or not support it?

Well, and that's what I'm trying to do. I mean, I'm trying to go down these items. But the other clarification I want is, you know, on your employee salary, Scott or Eric, I guess, What y'all presented with the cost of 63%, right, of employees, can you put that one up, that screen up?

Yes, okay. So if we fund approximately 63 of the recommended market adjustment for civilian employees effective October 1st, the additional will be funded when? In the budget for this year. That would be something for the court to decide.

Correct. So what I did was go with the original presentation, which was given two weeks ago. Option one, to your point, was 6.5 million. Option two was 487. Right. And so this would fully fund the 487.

Okay, so let's just say right now that I'm supportive of that phased, of that phasing of the employee salaries. So if we turn the page, I do also support the request of regrades and new positions to twice annually. I like that much more than quarterly. If the sheriff is supportive of the deletion of seven requested positions, corrections officers. I'm certainly supportive of that.

The sheriff is supportive of that right now. If there's 14 open or however many are...

Well, but they're not filled. And I know that we're wanting to bring back our corrections officer, but I think in order to address... Can I...

Okay, chime in just for a second. I've had conversations with Sheriff Hippolito, and I mean, I know he's here, but after we talked about the 21 that are currently open and the removal, the deletion of those seven, he still, because I said, is an initiative of bringing home all of our inmates, is that still possible? And he says that he thinks it can be done with what we have after the seven are removed, correct? I DID HAVE A DIFFERENT CONVERSATION. I JUST WANTED TO TOUCH ON THAT FOR A SECOND WITH HIM. WE, WHENEVER WE TALKED, HE WANTED TO MAKE SURE, BECAUSE HE IS TAKING AWAY FROM HIS DEPARTMENT

You are absolutely correct, and I'm sorry in the previous version it had both the detective and the regrade. And that got us within about $60,000 total of everything that was requested from the Sheriff's Department. And so I would amend to ensure that those are in here because otherwise the numbers don't work. They got deleted in the last version. And thank you for pointing that out.

So Sheriff Hippolito, may I ask a question? After the conversation with Commissioner Hammer, is that correct? You feel that with the deletion of these seven that we are still working towards bringing our inmates back and that can be accomplished with what you have after the seven are deleted from?

Okay. Okay. So let me just kind of go down the list again. So I was okay with the deletion of those seven requested corrections officer positions. I still feel that as far as the DA is concerned, I think that we're putting money aside for when the new DA comes in that we can address some of his issues. I think I still like that idea of doing that and not necessarily funding right now. As long as we have money set aside for that purpose, I think that I'm okay with that without adding them into the budget because Scott has accounted for some of that. I don't know what that dollar amount is, but

Again, the one caveat I would say is if we move forward with the associate judge for the county court at law, it has been identified that we need the attorney for that court. And that was reiterated by Greg.

Scott, can you tell me what the dollar amount is that you have?

Okay. I mean, did you have that? Let me see. No, you did not. Okay.

I think it's a mental health attorney 3.

Well, I think I would be supportive of that, setting that money aside. I just don't know that I think we'll have salary savings, as you stated, because I don't know that that attorney is going to be able to be hired January 1st. I think there's going to be some lead time on that. So I would say that if it's needed for to accomplish what we want, then yes, I would go ahead and

CORRECT, YES. LET'S SEE. AND SO HERE COME THE BIG TICKET ITEMS. THE AXON AI PLATFORM.

Again, that would be paid for out of the sheriff's. But additionally in here, again, it was deleted. And I believe if you look at the chart, that was provided by Scott. Additionally, there would be $158,194. for the auto theft detective. And I don't see the regrade in here, but I've got that number here as well. That regrade amount.

That's wonderful. So the difference would be $161,157 of those dollars provided by that position would, by the elimination of the positions, would go towards one auto detective with equipment. And again, it's not in here. For some reason, it was deleted whenever I printed the final version.

I want to also say from the Axon AI things, I mean, there are some. It's not just like these funds are going to – I understand it kind of puts us in a bind from years to come. I completely get that. But it also helps us. It has that translator service to it. We pay for translation service right now from a – within the CBA, so we pay per person, that would eliminate that cost there. I mean, it would eliminate it, correct? The cost from our, because you would have a translation service.

So where is that position that you're looking at?

That's what I'm saying. It was included in this chart, and for some reason it's not. If you turn in the notebook you were given today and look at those positions under the SO, it's one new auto theft detective.

Okay, I see. And it's $158,164. But I just want to confirm that on the information that Scott also provided me.

Well, so in Scott's recommended budget, he had two SRO deputies. I know that y'all requested three, Sheriff.

Did y'all request three or six? Three? Okay.

So may I just ask, because I know that, you know, sometimes we have to pick and choose. And I know it's going to be a difficult decision. difficult question and answer, but if you had to choose between an SRO or the auto theft detective, is there one that would just kind of raise to the top just a little bit more?

And again, if we were not going to fund those things that were directly related to the Sheriff's Department, I would not ask for that many.

Yes, I understand. But sometimes we have to, you know, give and take. Right.

And if we want to do those adjustments, it may drop down to six COs that are released. I mean, I... I just want to make sure that we're being fair with those departments who have been willing to come forward and say, we'll give up something.

Sure. I was going to say, his department was one of the only, I mean, I believe his department was the only department that I've talked to that says, I'll give this up for this.

I don't want to penalize that. Well, the county clerk also kind of did the same thing. The clerk did a phenomenal job. Not on that large of a scale.

Yeah, be your moral, the county's moral compass.

Well, I mean, and then that gives Scott an idea of, you know, what that's going to look like and how it will affect or impact the tax rate.

Yeah, I mean, I am. I don't know how long that will take us.

Yeah, I just need to say something. Whenever I said that he was the only department that came up, the county clerk, did they give up anything that wasn't in the recommended budget or that was in the recommended budget?

These are things that have been in his budget for quite some time.

So Oh, you're right Yes, Aaron Expects a big Christmas gift from every department

Let's do that. On point one, I'd like to offer an amendment to the proposed budget to adopt option two of the recommended employee retention and salary and workforce retention item as it was presented in the previous budget workshop. Under the proposed amendment, currently there's $2 million in the proposed budget. This would increase that amount to $4,874,868 with an impact on the tax rate of 0.6812.

Okay. I understand there's only one of me on this court, and I do understand how everyone understands how I feel about increasing the tax rate. So I feel like this is kind of being done a little out of order and a little crazy in the way the process is. But I respect every single one of y'all, and I knew that you guys have different priorities and perspectives in mind. But I will work with whatever budget is adopted and set forth, and I will do the best that I can. But right now, what we currently have going on is not sustainable in any way, shape or form. How much are we coming out of reserve

So 3.6 million is coming out of reserves. If y'all are going to add a penny and not fund reserves, we're just setting us up for failure next year. Property rates are not going up right now. I mean, the real estate market's not great. So how are we going to sustain this that we're currently doing? I really want to know because I've tried to make numbers work and I can't see any sustainability to it, which is devastating because you have people up here that care so much about what they're presenting and you want to give them more, but there's no way to do this with coming out of reserves that mu

Judge, the other thing that we did, I think we don't actually have to take a vote right now. We can say, yes, I agree. We've done that before, too. Correct. Let Scott then take that down and then come back and see where we're at.

Well, I was just going to say, in the past, very much to your point. We've done that. And your point. We've got a motion. We've got a second. We've got somebody who says that we're going to support it. That's enough direction for him to move forward.

Yeah, we don't have to take a vote. It's just. Correct. I will withdraw my motion.

And I mean, and I hear the court and I understand where everyone stands on where they feel raising the taxes and those types of things, right? My biggest thing is sustainability and making sure that what we're doing is going to be something that every single, I mean, because I know I've got, TWO MORE BUDGET CYCLES TO GO THROUGH. I FEEL LIKE EVERY YEAR IT'S GOING TO BE MORE AND MORE STRESSED. I WANT TO MAKE SURE WE'RE SETTING OURSELVES UP FOR SUCCESS AND NOT FAILURE. I WANT TO MAKE SURE OUR BOND RATINGS DON'T DROP. I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT WHAT DANIEL PRESENTED WITH THAT BREAKDOWN OF PRODUCTIVI

Well, I mean, I think that if we didn't have to go up and we could fund what we needed to fund, absolutely. But there's a lot of requests, and let's see how we get there.

And I just want to say, the very first budget workshop that Scott presented was with no tax increase and keeping it the same we saw exactly what would happen, which was nothing. No new positions, no new equipment, no new software, no nothing. And I think that that was important for everyone to see that, is that's where we are. That was the reality that we're living in. And so from there, my hope was that, okay, if we entertain just a penny, could we help all our employees? Could we fund the critical positions that align with our strategic plan. I mean, this is what should be guiding us in this

I don't disagree with you. The fact is we have to have a starting point. And if we look at these priorities today, we have the opportunity to give direction to Scott on how we feel on these priorities. And for those members of the court that aren't comfortable with bringing forth, for those who aren't comfortable with any increase in the tax rate whatsoever in order to reach those priorities, then it'll give you all a week to come back with an individual amendment knowing the direction that he's already got on those items. Those items would be off the table because we already know the directio

That's how it's got to go next week. Oh, that's what, well, next week. And so that's my point.

Well, and Judge, to be completely honest, the option two for the salary increases, I've tried all, like all get out to try to get that and fit that in with no new tax increase. And it's almost impossible. And that's, I was going to say, I care and I support our people. We keep hearing. Yeah. constantly that we need to take care of people. And I understand that, but we're also hearing that we need to make sure our people have a livable wage. So maybe we can work. We don't have to do option one or two. Maybe we take care of the people underneath the average, which the average is what? 71,400.

BUT MAYBE WE TAKE ANOTHER APPROACH BECAUSE I'M JUST TELLING YOU RIGHT NOW THERE'S ABSOLUTELY NO WAY WE CAN DO OPTION TWO AND NOT INCREASE THE TAXES.

When we tried to do this two or three years ago with NetMay and we were picking and choosing who got money, that backfired on us. Yeah, that was bad. And so I would not recommend doing that. Okay, okay. I mean, it did. And that's something that I will never forget that. So I definitely don't want to pick and choose who gets money.

Yeah, and I think that's why they brought us the other option of the 63% funding. Yeah. Yeah, we're just going to have to determine where we're going to be at. And, you know, I mean, Scott can do what you're saying, Judge, your recommendation to, you know, I just don't know how we can. Just see what it looks like. Yeah, I mean, that's fine. Put that phased.

Okay, so at this point, just let me clarify, we have at least three members of the court that support option two for taking care of our salary. Can we move on to the elected official salaries? Okay. So the elected official salaries, again, there were two options. The option that I chose was option one, which provided for a little over $11,000, between $11,000 and $12,000 worth of savings. However, I did put the caveat in there specific to law enforcement elected officials of 1% above their highest paid deputy under the collective bargaining agreement. Do we have support for that? I THINK IT'S A VERY RELEVANT WAY TO ADDRESS IT.

THE THIRD THING UNDER THAT PORTION THAT I ASKED FOR WAS TO ESTABLISH THE BUDGET CALENDAR WHERE AT THE MIDYEAR WE WOULD HAVE A ONE-TIME ABILITY FOR DEPARTMENT HEADS TO ADDRESS REGRADES AND NEW POSITIONS, AND WE WOULD DO, I WOULD ENVISION, I'M JUST SAYING THIS, A BUDGET WORKSHOP SPECIFIC TO REGRADES AND NEW POSITIONS AT THAT TIME. NOT IN COURT. SEPARATE. Is there support for that? Yes.

Well, not this year. Not this fiscal year. Yeah.

Correct. What else, Commissioner? The next one is the recommendation that the offices of the Justice of the Peace and the Constable's Office. THROUGH A PROCESS WITH THE COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR'S OFFICE, CREATE A MATRIX AND RECOMMENDATION TO BE PRESENTED DURING THAT FIRST MIDYEAR AS TO WORKLOAD, CASELOAD, AND RECOMMENDED SALARY REGRADES AND NEW POSITIONS FOR THOSE SPECIFIC OFFICES OF CONSTABLE AND JP.

I was just going to say, along with that, I think that Daniel Ayala gave the best kind of presentation with the data. I think that we need to expect that from our other departments also to incorporate that type of data.

And help them develop that, Candice. Yeah.

Very well done. Average call time. I mean, you could do that. Yeah, you can nail it.

That's awesome. So yes on that one. The next one is the deletion of seven corrections officers' positions, the addition of three SROs, the addition of one auto theft detective. And the first year payment of $96,700 for Axion AI. I support that. I would support that as well.

Well, it is AI. The good part about this contract is if we lock it in now, any advancements that they have, number one, Axion provides all the service for the county, and any advancements that they have are included. are automatically included. If we look at the billing schedule for those over the last several years, there's been significant increases in those. If we can lock it in, I do believe we're going to save money.

I'd like to hear from Stephanie real fast.

I think it's on, I think Exxon, it's Exxon.

Those are, by the way, all good questions, and I knew they were on by-board. I was like, they're on one of them.

So if we look at that. Is that option three? Option two. Okay. So it's not, the three options were all the bells and whistles, the low payment option for that, and then just translation services were the three options, correct? Correct. Correct. And this is the low payment option. To be clear.

So, Chief, I'm sorry. So, Chief, can you tell me then what is the total cost of this program?

And so we can get that contract, I guess, to Stephanie so she can review?

Okay, I just want to touch chase was nodding his head.

So I was just going to say, Sheriff, can you still get us those numbers on the auto theft detective before? I mean, that was the only one that I just at least wanted to get those numbers on. And if you felt, I know one is, you know, a lot for the entire county. I'm just saying if you'll at least look into that, I'd appreciate it.

And Commissioner, I have those numbers. They're also in that chart that you just looked at. But the salary itself is.

Oh, productivity. Gotcha. I just want to make sure that you saw that.

I'm fully supported. This is seven for I mean, it's sheriff's office just taking the funds and reallocating them.

As far as the positions on your amendment, Commissioner, so it's your recommendations plus what Scott recommended?

It is not what Scott recommended because he just provided those today.

No, it's the three SROs. It's the Axon, Axion or Axon. I thought it was just Axon. And then it's the auto theft detective. And in Sandra, her pay increase is already taken care of. So we don't have to worry about that.

And that's it, right? Well, the only other thing that was included in Scott's recommendation, again, and I want to be very clear that there's a difference in having something in your budget, and giving it up versus having something you asked for and not your budget. In the initial budget request, there was an additional two cadets, and those were not included in the budget. And so those are not anything that they gave up, but they were recommended by Scott. That's the other difference. If you look at the recommendations by Scott, but we didn't have those to go off of when I drafted this and ha

So Scott, you're going to take his... and ours, right, and put that together and then see what that looks like. Is that right? Okay.

And that was my, when I saw that, because I know that was always been a priority for both of y'all to bring our inmates back from Haskell County, right? And so when I saw this, that immediately where my brain went was, okay, does that mean we still, are we still going to be able to do that? What does that contract look like right now? You know, what have we committed to? I just don't want to lose that momentum that y'all have already started with Haskell. Thank you.

And I think we, y'all also mentioned that with the number of COs that you have left that aren't filled, if we can fill those, we can possibly reduce that number by 50 inmates coming back.

You're about $80,000 short for all your requests. If we did option one, It would be, and Scott, correct me if I'm wrong here, but for all of the requests that you had, you're still about $80,000 short. And if we go with option two, where it spreads over 10 years, we just about hit that number. Am I right, Scott? I just want to make sure.

Okay. Yeah, I don't think because you've got 96 plus the 284. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, which it would cover Axon, but it would not cover the other positions. for the three SROs and the detective.

284, because the contract, they're not doing the lower payment. That's what, four? 483. 483, okay.

No. Because you've got $284,686 just for three SROs.

Okay. You've got $165,000 for one detective. Okay. You've got... It would be...

Almost it would be over nine hundred thousand that you would need and those seven CEOs are only 637 I rather give you the money than buy new elections equipment that we don't need to buy.

All right. The next one is the associate judge position for the county courts at law. and the associated mental health attorney three for the DA's office, those two items I think would have to run together because of the statement of the district attorney. And I would be supportive of both of those. Again, any facilities needs or conversion needs, I've had a conversation with Scott that he believes that there's funding already allocated for that that could cover that. I would be supportive of that court.

So we can cover that without tapping into our... General fund.

I would be supportive of that as well. The next one is in grand total. ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE, SIX DIFFERENT POSITION UPGRADES OR, PARDON ME, REGRADES FOR THE D.A. 'S OFFICE THAT TOTAL $50,800. TOTALLY SUPPORTED.

CAN WE ASK ERIC, WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE IF WE WERE TO FACE IN THIS SALARY?

It's like a moot point. Right. And I'm fine with waiting and talking about those next week, but I would appreciate if you could have a conversation with the DA's office before then to clarify if those regrades would be included. That's a good point.

The last two items that we have not addressed thus far are for the DA's office. One of the requests that they had was refilling the accounts that were cut somewhat. for both pretrial and trial and continuing education. I have a real concern after sitting down and speaking with Mr. Cox that they are not going to have the funding to complete all of their continuing ed for their attorneys in that office. And so the... In the budget, it was proposed at $39,000. What they've requested is $53,000, so it's $14,000 for continuing education.

Absolutely right. What else? And then the last item is voting equipment, year one funding for three physical years. The only way that we could break down that cost over an elongated time period is with a three-year estimate, and the It's the big-ticket item that we're going to talk about, and it's $959,283.53.

You all have heard my conversations. Yes, very thorough. And I don't want to put our administrator – we all complimented her on her job today, and I don't want to put her in an unattainable position in three years.

And I will say that the voting equipment does add money back into the budget because every election – brings in dollars for that department.

Of the dollars coming in or the cost of the change? The dollars coming in. No, I do not, but that's actually really good. I should get that.

It's so hard, and I say that given the fact that we have so many... We've got, what, 100 and something entities that we hold elections for now? All the muds and suds and everything else. I know that every time there's a city election in Dripping Springs and nobody files, it saves them somewhere in the neighborhood of $35,000. I was speaking to our groundwater district the other day, and I think that they're estimating to hold their election this year because they have three seats that are going to be contested. It's going to cost them, I think they budgeted $15,000 to $20,000 for that election

That's actually everything that was in this amendment, and everything was accepted with the exception of the election equipment.

Just our other list, Scott, make sure that we...

I'll go fast. It's three justice clerks and one additional juvenile diversion.

Yes. All right. This young lady, what is it? Yours is K9? Okay. Tell me. Well, we're probably going to.

So moved. Tell us real quick. Sure. Aaron, do you want to walk? Aaron or Michael, you all want to walk through specifically. But the original agreement, we went back through and looked at it. We had questions from the original agreement as to, with the right-of-way, putting... The roadway is going, just one of the examples is the roadway is going to be built out to its ultimate configuration. It's curb and gutter, right? We own to the end of it. The city of Dripping Springs, West Travis County PUA, others want to put those utilities underneath the sidewalks. Technically, they're in our right o

So we finally did it. It's been about a month since we've been working on this PSA, but we all came to terms with this contract to explore the options in the creation of the PUA.

One thing I would like to add to this, and we've been talking to Tammy about this for a little while, Our rates have gone up exponentially on some of our items. And so in doing so, I've had numerous conversations with residents who are like, wow, y'all charge too much for this or that. And I've asked her to display this rate sheet at each one of our locations, but also in there put what our actual display to the public, what our actual cost is, because we supplement every one of these. In other words, if we're charging $30 for a mattress and it's costing us $32, we're supplementing that. And s

So judge this gives the county the responsibility of food permitting at facilities owned and operated by, or operated county facilities within the city limits of San Marcos. I guess they were responsible for that?

It's just a final motion to establish the final budget at 1 p.m. on the 25th, and I move to do so.

Because only action can be taken in place during the budget workshop. Exactly.

Oh, just a quick question. You already ran some numbers on that, Candice. What was the numbers? She said 70. Rough numbers.

Yes. Thank you, Judge. This is regarding M1, motion to authorize and execute Rule 11 settlement agreements and authorize counsel to execute any other necessary documents to implement and finalize the settlement of Hays County, Texas v. Satterwhite Multifamily LLC, cause number 26-0446-C, pending in Hays County Court at Law No. 1, Parcel 29A, in Hays County, Texas v. Aaron Hermann OG1 LLC at cause number 26-0447-C pending in Hays County Court at Law No. 3, Parcel 29C related to the FM 2001 Gap Roadway and Safety Improvement Project in Precinct 2.