Remarks by Stephen Germann
78 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 4
- Play at 2:35:22
“No, you're good. Todd, Judge, could you come back up again? I have a different topic. And he's not aware that I'm bringing this up. So we have the Marion Project. We've spent $2.7 million on it. It's going to be a, well, it is a beautiful building. And Judge Friesenhahn sent all of us recently an email about his staffing needs. There is concern that we're going to open this beautiful building and we're going to put a sign up there, but we're only open Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday because we've got to work the rest of the time. So, and we want to try to put a tax clerk there, but the tax…”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 2:39:26
“So if you have a part-time, you could make full-time. I got two part-times. That's the answer.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 2:41:20
“I think that's what it was. What would that cost difference?”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 2:41:37
“Judge, would that help us keep the doors open?”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 2:50:13
“Our admin is just like any other department, but we're seeing more and more work. And she is getting the job done, facilitating things. I mean, there's some things that people don't see, She keeps having to deal with families that someone passes on and they don't want to accept the body. And she has to find a place with dignity to go with that. And she spends a lot of time on that. She definitely is getting the job done and I think I could support a pay increase for her. It takes a long time to train someone too and she's moved into that very well. We don't want to lose her.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 2:57:04
“I'm just going to say it again. I don't have a problem with what Commissioner Ott is saying. I will say this. I do my job differently probably than the other commissioners. She absolutely knows where I am every day. She'll say, I call in, anything going on, Taylor? No. Yes, you got to take care of this. I keep her extremely busy, and that's just me. I'm not speaking for the other three commissioners. I believe that she deserves some compensation. She is the face of this court when we are having court, because she's there on the computer. with people interacting and so forth. So I have no…”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 3:49:36
“I just want more information. I'm on board with that idea.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 4:13:19
“And we pay all those bills, not ARPA? Yes, sir.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 4:13:33
“Why was that not part of the architectural bid? It's not part of it. It's the soft cost.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 4:14:22
“No, I've already paid all the bills on Marion. All the additional testing? Yeah. Okay. We did it. Yeah. That's why I'm asking this question.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 4:56:58
“My question about this is I'm inclined to agree with the committee because, as I said yesterday to them, this is a process, and the process was followed. But my question is, okay, you give this increase to a certain elected official, and I did question that in my mind right away. What do you do with the rest? But the other thing is, let's take the justice of the peace precinct three. If we grant this and he's no longer in that office, does it go back to what everybody else is getting? Or does it set it for that office? Am I making sense of what I'm saying?”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 4:58:45
“So if Precinct 3 wasn't there next year, you could put it back to what all the others are getting?”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 5:07:15
“To the discussion that we were having at length that Commissioner Ott was discussing, like some of the positions with Daniela, we did mention, but we didn't put a figure on I'd like to put a figure on the BFDs of 350,000. Last year was 500,000. I don't have the exact math, but what Commissioner Ott was talking about and the BFDs, all that lumped together, you could probably do that for, I'm going to say, 600,000 to 700,000. I'm not inclined to use reserves for a large number of reserves to Commissioner Wolbertson's point. Next year, you've got to do it again. But I think we could go support…”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 5:09:30
“will go back to this I'm sorry to interrupt I will go back to this and it's it's not a great deal of money but in in the Marion building you know we really need we're going to open the building and we can't put a sign up that says well we couldn't fund the position so it's closed for a day or two out of the week you know we we can't do that and we're not talking about a great deal of money here so i'd be in support of that so you're in support of giving judge hunter a full-time person from part-time yeah yeah that's what you said yeah because their workload has increased too”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 5:12:53
“Judge, I'm sorry to interrupt. No, you're fine. You did the budget. You're the budget officer. So, like, I'm looking at one of our worksheets from the budget workshop. Yes. If you look at, you know, we're trying not to dictate next year's budget with what we do now. Is this what you were looking at? I'm looking at this one. Okay, but the bottom?”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 5:13:23
“Okay. What part of what you projected, like I'm looking at 365 labs, okay, that's a maintenance and licensing, so we'll have to pay that again. When you made the budget, what part of like this stuff right here, these big items would we not do again? Do you know of any item?”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 5:13:59
“There were some, for security, there were some items of security of the buildings. So I'm trying to keep us from backing ourselves in a corner by looking at what we may not have to spend next year again. Am I making sense what I'm saying? Right.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 5:23:10
“Let me understand what you're saying. You're saying a 3% COLA and a 1,000 longevity?”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 5:32:02
“And isn't it true also that you inspect and inspect and inspect? So it's not like that's a new business and you did one inspection. You're getting fees in all the time.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 5:36:59
“He's out of the commissary funds. That's not. Right. That's the sheriff's deal.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 5:37:44
“Is that out of his... Forfeiture fund. Yeah, forfeiture, okay. That's for one year. For one, yeah, that's fine.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 5:41:45
“And I'm going to interject this with that 350. Last year we did 500, so this would be less. But we kind of didn't have a good formula for the way we did it. And so my suggestion is you take the run numbers and let's say that one fire department does 20% of the runs then they get 20% of the 350,000. Likewise, if you have a fire department that doesn't seem to get to fires ever, they get nothing.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 5:43:29
“Then I'd be on board with we allocate $350,000 in the budget and then we move on at another point and figure out how that allocation is going to work. Aside from their regular contracts.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 5:44:08
“I don't have fire protection. I have some of Cibolo, but other than that, I don't have fire protection in Precinct 4. I have to have the volunteers. Well, they're there. You have Marion, you have New Berlin, and you have Cibolo. I know, but I have to pay Marion and New Berlin something. They can't operate on nothing.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026
- Play at 5:45:05
“Two full-time and one part-time, I believe. So the city of Marion, if you lump it all together, it's 500 acres. That's it. It's not a huge city. And the Marion Fire Department is covering many, many, a large area. Right. Now, I'm not going to argue. I think the cities ought to be putting more into their fire departments. But the bulk of their runs are not in the city. The bulk of their runs are out in the rural areas.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 1, 2026