County judge files $22.6 million budget for fiscal 2023

Gonzales County Judge Pat Davis has filed a budget for fiscal year 2023 which calls for more than $22.6 million in expenditures against revenues of more than $18.6 million.

The county expects to use about $4 million of its more than $22.2 million projected ending fiscal year 2022 fund balance to pay for the difference, which will allow the county to drop the tax rate from $0.4391 per $100 valuation last year to $0.3071 this fall, a decrease of 13.2 cents from last year’s tax rate.

The proposed tax rate is equal to the no-new-revenue rate, which essentially a tax rate that would produce the same amount of taxes if applied to the same properties taxed in the current and prior fiscal year, without taking any new improvements into consideration.

The adjusted taxable value for Gonzales County was nearly $3.32 billion in 2021, but skyrocketed to more than $4.41 billion in 2022. The county saw more than $32 million in new improvements to taxable property.

The average homestead went up in value from $120,123 in 2021 to $132,149 in 2022, but the tax on the average homestead is expected to go down from $527.46 last year to $405.83 this year, a difference of 121.63, or more than 23 percent.

Commissioners will hold a public hearing at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 6, in the Commissioners Courtroom at the Gonzales County Courthouse on the budget for fiscal year 2022-23.

Budget at a glance

The proposed budget calls for general fund expenditures of $15,621,996.23, an increase of $561,097.15, or 3.7 percent, above last year’s general fund budget of $15,060,899.08. The majority of that increase comes from a salary increase of $1 per hour, or $2,080 per year, across the board for full-time county employees.

There are also increases for longevity pay as well as for increases for the cost of supplies due to inflation.

Auditor Becky Weston said Gonzales County will use $3,109,035.21 in general fund balance to offset the difference between revenue and expenses. The general fund is expected to generate $12,512,961 in revenue for the upcoming year.

Gonzales County has also budgeted an overall total of $6,283,090.56 for road and bridge expenditures, which includes salaries, capital outlay, supplies and money for right-of-way acquisition and maintenance costs. Last year, Gonzales County budgeted $6,253,836.12, so this year’s budget represents an increase of $29,254.44, or almost 0.05 percent.

While supplies and materials have gone up due to inflation and the expenses also include the salary increase of $1 per hour per road and bridge employee, the commissioners are offsetting some of that difference with a large decrease in capital outlay expenditures.

Gonzales County has budgeted revenue of $5,934,407 for the road and bridge fund for fiscal year 2023, so the county will be using $348,683.56 in fund balance to offset the difference.

Special funds expenditures went up from $272,345 budgeted in fiscal year 2022 to $311,143 budgeted for fiscal year 2023, an increase of $38,798 or nearly 14.25 percent. The lion’s share of that increase is in the County Clerk Records Management fund, which is seeing an increase in expenditures from $145,409 budgeted last year to $201,226 this year, a total increase of $55,817, or 38.4 percent.

Special fund revenues, however, are expected to drop from $182,545.40 last year to $175,800.40 this year, a decrease of $6,745, or about 3.7 percent. The county will anticipate using $135,342.60 in fund balance to make up the difference between expenses and revenues.

However, the county will be using less in American Recovery Plan Act funds in fiscal year 2023 than they did the current fiscal year, down from $1,839,262.73 budgeted for fiscal year 2022 to $430,609 budgeted for the upcoming year, a difference of $1,408,653.73, or 76.6 percent less. The majority of the county’s anticipated expenses from ARPA funds came during fiscal year 2022, including the purchase of new mobile and handheld radios for county-based first responders.