County judge files $26.85 million budget for 2024-25

Gonzales County Judge Pat Davis has filed a budget for fiscal year 2025 which calls for more than $26.85 million in expenditures across all funds against revenues of more than $21.12 million.

According to the budget Davis filed on Thursday, Aug. 15, the county has a projected fiscal year 2024 ending fund balance (across all funds) of more than $20.5 million, from which it will pay for the difference, which will allow the county to drop the tax rate from $0.2420 per $100 valuation last year to $0.2032 this fall, a decrease of 3.88 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 total tax levy on all property in the county is increasing to $14,233,257 this year — an increase of $123,090, or 0.87 percent. Of that amount, $129,654 is tax revenue to be raised from new property added to the tax roll this year.

The average homestead went up in value from $143,678 in 2023 to $155,290, an increase of $11,612, or 8.08 percent, but the tax on the average homestead is expected to go down from $347.40 last year to $315.55 this year, a decrease of $32.15, or 6.05 percent.

Commissioners will hold a public hearing at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 3, in the Commissioners Courtroom at the Gonzales County Courthouse on the budget for fiscal year 2024-25.

Budget at a glance

The proposed budget calls for general fund expenditures of $19,124,238.66, an increase of $1,061,109.75, or 5.87 percent, above last year’s general fund budget of $18,063,128.91. The majority of that increase comes from a salary increase of $0.50 per hour, or $1,040 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. The general fund is expected to generate $15,596,636 in revenue for the upcoming year, an increase of 8.3 percent or $1,197,870, above the $14,398,766 that was generated last year.

Gonzales County has also budgeted an overall total of $6,848,480.40 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 $7,046,168.52, so this year’s budget represents a decrease of $197,688.12, or almost 2.8 percent.

While supplies and materials have gone up due to inflation and the expenses also include the salary increase of $0.50 per hour per road and bridge employee, the commissioners also decreased the amount funded to Precinct 2 from $2,109,664.10 to $2,008,574.10. There are modest decreases to both the Precinct 3 ($15,700) and Precinct 4 ($142.925.12) expenditure budgets, while the Precinct 1 budget has increased from $55,675 from $1,781,482.10. to $1,837,157.10.

Gonzales County has budgeted revenue of $4,779,652 for the road and bridge fund for fiscal year 2025, compared to the $6,000,036 that was budgeted in 2024 — a decrease of $1,220,384 in revenue, or more than 20.3 percent.

The county must show it has met mandates for state criminal justice and show its expenditures for indigent criminal defense. In the past 12 months, Gonzales County has spent $226,098 for maintenance and operations cost of keeping inmates sentenced to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. According to county calculations, this has resulted in an increase of 0.09 cent difference per $100 valuation in the no-new-revenue M&O tax rate.

For indigent defense, Gonzales County has spent $428,287 in the past 12 months to fund operations for public defense, less any state grants received. For the current tax year, the amount of increase above last year’s indigent defense compensation expenditures is $178,090. This increased the no-new-revenue maintenance and operations rate by 0.01 cents per $100.