Remarks by Walt Smith
279 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 6 of 12
- Play at 2:41:07
“Okay, so it's the 40% that we're missing.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 2:41:16
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 3:10:51
“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…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 3:38:08
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 3:38:29
“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.…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 3:42:01
“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…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 3:48:32
“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,…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 4:02:40
“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…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 4:22:57
“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?”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 4:23:37
“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…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:07:15
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:09:17
“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…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:11:17
“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…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:20:25
“Yeah. Oh, I didn't hear you say payment. Oh, no, you're good.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:20:30
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:21:08
“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…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:31:19
“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?”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:33:56
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:36:39
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:39:32
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:40:42
“I think it's a mental health attorney 3.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:42:02
“Again, that would be paid for out of the sheriff's.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:42:07
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:43:02
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:44:18
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026