Commissioners Continue To Hammer Out Williamson County Budget

WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TX -- The Williamson County Commissioners Court received presentations on Tuesday centered on the budget, tax rate, reserves and compensation aimed at helping make key decisions on the budget.

The county budget is scheduled to be adopted on Aug. 30. Budget Officer Ashlie Koenig presented the recommended budget for the general fund which is $172,084,496.92, officials said.

"That figure includes $8.8 million in one-time capital improvements funded from cash reserves that were previously approved by the Commissioners Court," officials said in an news advisory. "This is an increase of a little more than $8 million or 4.9% over last year’s budget. County department heads and elected officials requested $18 million more than what was recommended by the Budget Office."

According to county officials, the recommended budget for FY 2016-2017 for Road & Bridge is $27,437,841 or an increase of just .29%. The Debt Service budget, which is repaying the debt associated with road, park and other capital improvements, was recommended at $83,060,730.33, officials added.

Larry Gaddes, chief deputy of the Tax Assessor/Collector’s Office, stated the County’s effective tax rate is $0.446618. The effective tax rate is the tax rate that would produce the same amount of revenue if applied to the same properties that are taxed in both years. The current tax rate is $0.481529 per $100 of valuation. The rollback tax rate, the tax rate established to determine if the public is able to petition the county to have a rollback election if the adopted rate exceeds the rollback rate, is $0.481847.

Officials noted the Commissioners Court is scheduled to vote on the tax rate on Tuesday, Sept. 13, with two public hearings on the tax rate proposed for Aug. 30 and Sept. 6. The Commissioners Court will decide the dates at their next meeting, officials said.

During the discussion on compensation, Senior Director of Human Resources Tara Raymore recommended a 2 percent increase to elected officials’ salaries with the exception of the county attorney whose salary would be increased $3,857.96 to be consistent with County Court-at-Law judges, officials said.

Raymore also recommended a 3 percent merit increase to all employees not on the law enforcement or corrections pay charts. It was further recommended to fund the law enforcement tenure step plan, which is an automatic salary increase based on tenure, as well as a two percent increase to the steps with some changes between steps to make them more equitable, according to county officials.

Williamson County First Assistant County Auditor Julie Kiley said that Williamson County will end the fiscal year with an estimated $84.2 million in general fund cash reserves and $17.2 million in Road and Bridge fund cash reserves.

The Commissioners Court has two budget modification voting sessions scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 17, beginning at 8:30 a.m., and Tuesday, Aug. 23, at 1 p.m. During those times, commissioners will vote on changes to the recommended budget as presented ahead of the Aug. 30 official budget adoption.