Remarks by Morgan Hammer
226 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 4 of 10
- Play at 4:05:29
“He did. But I thought we just made that motion and then it didn't come through. Right. I think you got a motion and a second, but no.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 4:06:54
“OKAY. LET ME READ SOME MORE NUMBERS. I KNOW. EXACTLY. NO. CALL AND ROLL.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 4:08:57
“So it's .40977. He was including road and bridge.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 4:24:41
“The amount of times we redid that motion was insane.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 40:20
“A lot of what y'all do, you don't get compensated for, and a lot of it's volunteer work, and a lot of it's just strictly from the heart. And I appreciate all the things that y'all do for, again, one of the most vulnerable populations that we have in our area. Stack the Mac is probably the cutest thing I've ever heard for a volunteer drive or a food drive But I really do appreciate you guys and what you do every single day, and it doesn't go unnoticed Commissioner Smith”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 55:32
“Those 90s reference went right over my head, so I didn't get it either. I'm sorry. But yes, to echo what Commissioner Cohen said, it is so important that y'all build these relationships too with HEB, the local areas, so you can and they can help you get food to those that need it. But go show up, go volunteer. I don't know if you have a volunteer process. I just showed up and I realized maybe I had to go through a process. So maybe don't just show up, but definitely go volunteer because y'all need the volunteers and you guys do great work. So thank you so much.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 1:15:41
“Thank you so much for getting up and speaking. I don't know how y'all do this where you guys don't cry on the dais. I try really hard. But this one is pretty personal to me too. I know last year I shared a little bit I had from my mother attempting multiple times to a close friend that we were supposed to go to college together right before we got to college, taking her life. It's something that definitely hurts the people that they leave behind, but it's something also where if we continue to support and we foster a community where people feel like they can open up and they can talk about it…”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 1:24:39
“And Judge, I know that you wanted to see something without a tax increase. So what I just handed you is a no tax increase.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 1:24:56
“I do have to continue to preface. I think we should really review the salary study in its entirety. Again, I appreciate the work that our HR department put into this. And I'm not discrediting that work. I just think that some of these positions, especially when you look at the operational budgets for some of these departments and coming out of their operational departments to try to make these numbers work, but then paying people that are making well over $150,000, a 20%, 23%, 25% increase. I can't go to my constituency and look at them in the face and say, we robbed Peter to pay Paul. We…”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 1:27:12
“And yeah, I think that there's a lot of different ways to look at it. I mean, again, whatever budget you adopt, I'm going to do the best work within that budget. But there's just a heartache on some of these increases that I can't be able to talk to my constituency and say that that is something that I would ever support.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 1:29:14
“Well, we didn't get the market study data until like a little bit over two weeks ago.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 1:29:23
“I mean, yeah, I was like, it took me a long time. I went through everything from the city positions. And that's another thing too, is it's hard to compare some of these because you look at the city and you compare some of those positions. If we're going to be compared to city council, then our pay would look different too, you know? So how do you pick and choose? Also elected officials, they have the autonomy to kind of run their department how they want to, right? So I don't know if job, descriptions and positions are 100% comparable. I mean, they're elected for a reason.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 1:30:13
“Limit the range. And that's why I said a dollar amount, just because a dollar amount, you could still give someone making $80,000 15%, because it might not hit that dollar amount that you say, right? That's why I think a dollar amount would make more sense than a percentage, because if you limit a percentage, people that are making $40,000 won't ever be able to hit that, right? Absolutely. So that's just my, it's just I've had a heartache with looking at these numbers and”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 1:31:39
“I think it's closed-minded to think that we can't take care of the people on the bottom and limit in some way, shape, or form the people on the top. I think that it's something that we can have. It's doable. I do I hear what you're saying from a compression standpoint That's why if you put a cap on it it might make more sense because people are still getting an increase They just caps at a certain point, but I mean we're affecting and I know department heads are not going to come up here and say No, my employees shouldn't be making more at the end of the day again if I was Bill Gates everyone…”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 1:32:56
“I mean, and we're doing a phased-in approach. We've got to figure out where we're going to get an additional $2 million down the road for this approach. And are we going to raise taxes? Because we're still coming out of reserves. I'm going to keep stressing the importance. I do think it's important. I think financial sustainability is important. And I also think that I don't want to get into a spot like the ISDs have gotten into where they're having to cut people because they don't have the sustainability to be able to support them. Exactly.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 1:33:46
“We got a 6% increase to everyone last year. I mean, 6% would be I mean, from the private sector, that's not, the private sector, they get an average of 3.5% across the board.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 1:34:09
“Yeah, the main, so a lot of the things we've already kind of gone over from the sheriff's office, reducing six of the correction officers in exchange for the things that they wanted, like their three SROs, a sheriff's office HR pay grade or regrade. So that's going to be for Sandra's position. JP21 clerk, and these are all starting on different dates, just so the numbers could work. But we have JP21 clerk starting on 4-1. That is due to the numbers that were provided by all of the JPs, and Judge Beth Smith definitely has one of the highest workloads. And then you got the Constable Precinct 2…”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 1:35:25
“This is just, yes, adding in one clerk for Judge Smith. And again, at the end of the day, this is how you make the numbers work for not a tax increase. Not saying it's the most ideal. Nothing's going to be most ideal because the most ideal thing would be us having an unlimited amount of money.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 1:35:51
“Yes, this is no tax increase. This is how it is.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 1:36:30
“And this still dips into the reserves the same amount. Like this is, I mean, this is bare bones, right? We don't have, and property values aren't going up. We might not have the ability to come up with another $2 million for these salary increases. So I get that you might not be able to support this completely, but I mean, having some type of wiggle room to try to come down so we are more sustainable next year, I think is extremely important to look at.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 1:39:00
“We have two more courts before we're solidified on everything. We have two more weeks. With getting the salary, all the market salary, and some of these department heads haven't even gotten all the salary data. And I think that that's extremely important. They might have gotten it for their own department, but they haven't gotten the justification on how those numbers came to. So, I mean, I have department heads asking, I mean, they've got a operational budget that has been cut. and to make room for these types of things. I mean, I think we can't hurt a department operationally because we're…”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 1:49:06
“Are we, quick question, second, I'll second that, but are we doing the low PMT that they gave us, or are we doing the low PMT from what was presented last week, which was, I believe, over $100,000, I think it was like $170,000.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 2:05:30
“I would think that would be less than $5,000. Per person? Per week? I mean, I'm just trying to do numbers. How many weeks?”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 2:08:12
“I would say that I fully do think this is something that we need. Again, I made that very clear, my support on this. Unfortunately, I just can't support it because I'm not going to support a tax rate increase, and I've tried time and time again to work this in the budget, but I think it is important, and I do support the cause.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 2:11:52
“And my comments from what we just voted on still stand on this one.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026