Remarks by Walt Smith
279 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 7 of 12
- Play at 5:44:35
“Okay, I see. And it's $158,164. But I just want to confirm that on the information that Scott also provided me.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:44:56
“Did y'all request three or six? Three? Okay.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:46:09
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:46:23
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:49:56
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:52:41
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 5:59:25
“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…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:01:13
“That's how it's got to go next week. Oh, that's what, well, next week. And so that's my point.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:04:46
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:04:55
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:05:47
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:06:29
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:07:42
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:08:36
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:11:01
“I think it's on, I think Exxon, it's Exxon.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:11:15
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:11:52
“So if we look at that. Is that option three? Option two. Okay.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:11:58
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:19:15
“And Commissioner, I have those numbers. They're also in that chart that you just looked at. But the salary itself is.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:19:26
“Oh, productivity. Gotcha. I just want to make sure that you saw that.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:19:55
“It is not what Scott recommended because he just provided those today.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:20:13
“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…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:23:20
“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.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:24:15
“Yeah, which it would cover Axon, but it would not cover the other positions. for the three SROs and the detective.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026
- Play at 6:25:05
“Okay. You've got $165,000 for one detective. Okay. You've got... It would be...”
Commissioners Court · Aug 18, 2026