PRESIDIO COUNTY – Three county budget workshops this month have given shape to the 2022 fiscal year budget for Presidio County. Revenues are expected to grow this coming year, making room for commissioners to debate the allocations of county revenue toward various departments and bigger capital outlay costs.
Each year, as property valuations grow or shrink, new tax rates are calculated to find what tax rate would bring in exactly the same amount of revenue as the previous fiscal year. From there, taxing entities like the county are allowed to increase taxes by 3.5% to the “voter approval rate.” While they can set the rate even higher, voters would then be able to petition for a rollback election that could knock tax rates back down.
Commissioners this year are considering setting the 2022 tax rate at the voter approval rate, a 3.5% increase above the no new revenue rate. They won’t vote, hold a hearing or approve that rate until after the proposed budget is filed on August 15, but if it passes, it will help generate the estimated $5,089,000 maintenance and operations budget that the county has to work with for the 2022 budget.
Revenues in 2021 were around $4,993,000, and the $96,000 increase for the new fiscal year is mostly due to a slight tax increase along with the addition of new properties to the rolls, according to County Auditor Patty Roach. The auditor hopes the county’s general fund balance will also grow a bit in the last two months of the 2021 fiscal year. “Some of our revenues have not come in to the extent we would like them to, but I am hopeful that the next two months will change that.”
“Our tax collection is a little bit lower than what I would expect it to be at this time of year, and we’re still seeing the effects of COVID,” she said. That includes the slowed-down pace of courts, which normally are able to bring in more revenue than they have. “Before the pandemic started we had collected most of our anticipated property tax in 2020, so we didn’t see the impact that we could have seen. But that may be why collections are down this year — people may be feeling the pinch and it could be something they’re deferring to pay off,” Roach said.
Most county department budgets remained steady this year, with minor variations. Costs for office expenses can be predictable, but travel budgets have changed since the future of in-person training for county employees remains unpredictable due to the recent decline, and then slight rise, in COVID nationwide.
“It’s usually capital outlay where someone says I need this thing, and it’s a big thing,” Roach explained. After a series of emergencies in the past fiscal year, the department of emergency management has been budgeted for a series of capital outlays –– large one-time costs to purchase equipment or construction. Included in their list are defibrillators, a generator switch and installation, portable generators, and the Marfa airport emergency operations area and its accompanying utilities. The latter has been in the budget for several years, rolling over from previous years since the project has not gotten underway.
Judge Cinderela Guevara said that during the Texas winter storm, she found out someone had been looking for an emergency generator to keep their father’s medical equipment running. The addition of portable generators to the county’s arsenal will allow them to deliver the equipment during power outages to those who need electricity to survive.
The road and bridge department is budgeted for a $28,000 used dump truck, the tax office is holding onto $1,500 in contingency funds to replace aging computers, and the sheriff’s office requested $8,000 for contingencies; this year, they have funded repairs in dispatch and have identified issues with the radio repeater at Chinati Peak.
The airport and the jail both have separate budgets from the main county one, since they both rely on their own revenues rather than tax revenues being attached to them. At the jail, nearly $70,000 was budgeted for radios, body cameras, filing cabinets, desks and other unspecified set asides that could be used if washers, dryers or the walk-in freezer go out. While Commissioner Buddy Knight questioned the need, Jail Administrator Gracie Parras reassured him that the items in question were necessary to buy in the coming fiscal year.
“We need to look at the toys list and say, is this the year we buy the constable a truck? Is this the year we buy a 40k lawnmower?” Auditor Roach asked. Commissioners trimmed down the budget by cutting out capital outlay requests from certain departments, removing from the budget a mower for the golf course fairway, a new constable patrol vehicle, a new emergency management vehicle, a road sweeper and $2,000 in unspecified funds for elections.
County Clerk Florcita Zubia and Tax Assessor/Collector Natalia Williams put in a request for a full-time position to oversee elections, manage the new redistricting that will happen this year and clean up the voter rolls. A primary, potential runoff and general election will take place in the coming fiscal year, and the two officials asked commissioners to consider a full-time worker.
Previously, Zubia had overseen elections, but in her new capacity as county/district clerk, she and Williams said it was too much to take on. “I had all my time to dedicate to that but now I don’t,” Zubia said. “This year, Natalia and I are going to elections school, but in the future, they [the new elections employee] will be focusing on elections and going to school to learn about the new laws.”
Commissioners rebuffed the request though, instead adding more money to the budget for a seasonal worker to come in during election times.
Zubia did, however, successfully petitioned to raise the pay for election judges and clerks, citing that the county was not competitive with the city in its pay to election workers, and that some workers actually walked out during elections because of the pay disparity between city and county election work.
Commissioner Brenda Bentley also persuaded the court to move the courthouse custodian to full-time employee after they all agreed the quality of work and improvements to the facility thus far were well worth the investment.
The county moved $100,000 to partially fund an ambulance for Presidio EMS, which services residents in the unincorporated parts of south county. Commissioner Eloy Aranda said, “We should focus on the medical part of emergency services; we’re talking about human lives here,” imploring the county to focus on the basic health and safety needs of the people in Presidio. After a proposal from County Attorney Rod Ponton, another $75,000 of surplus funds was put into a contingency fund. That may go toward helping with the development of an express clinic in Presidio, but commissioners wanted to see more detailed plans before firmly committing county money to the project.
In a plea to commissioners, District Attorney Ori White successfully saw the addition of $14,000 to his budget this year, growing to $50,000 after telling commissioners about the various services he’s providing to the county. White said the funds would go toward his plan to hire an additional attorney at the DA’s office.
Speaking to commissioners, White mentioned pending child sexual assault cases, drug charges, cases involving human smuggling of undocumented immigrants at the border and the retrying of a case for the brutal murder of a Marfa teacher. “Y’all have to decide what level of felony prosecution y’all want. I think I can do a robust job for y’all if you give me $50,000, and it’s my job to assess what resources I need.”
With funds to spare after hearing proposals from all departments, commissioners went forward with a 3% raise for all employees, which will amount to around $0.45 per hour for hourly workers and an annual $909 increase for salaried employees, totalling an estimated $90,000.
The proposed budget is set to be filed August 15, with commissioners then working on the tax rate and the final passage of a budget before the September 30 deadline.
