BUDGET OVERVIEW OF THE With the increased growth of the area, county budgets have continued to increase over the past several years. The scal year 2022-23 Comal County budget increased by 10.5% compared to the 2022 adopted budget.
ADOPTED BUDGET COMPARISON
2023 EXPENDITURE BREAKDOWN
FY 2019 20
$30.97M
Public safety General government
$95.23M
$27.23M
41.66% INCREASE
Corrections and rehabilitation Infrastructure and environmental services
FY 2020 21
$22.5M
$97.85M
Total expenditures
$16.57M $11.81M $20.66M
FY 2021 22
Justice system Debt service Health and human services
$121.9M
FY 2022 23
$3.81M
CONTINUED FROM 1
$134.9M
Community and economic development
salaries for new county positions. The Commissioners Court made the decision to prioritize employee compensation in the 2023 budget to address sta ng struggles throughout the county. There are 121 vacancies with the sheri ’s department, roads department and district attorney’s department being most a ected by sta ng shortages. “We have worked really hard over the years to invest in our facilities and infrastructure so our employees can have a nice, good, safe place to work, but also to service the public in those facilities,” Webb said. “We’ve also invested in transportation on sev- eral projects, but it’s been a few years since we really took a hard look at our employees’ wages.” The adopted budget is about $14 million more than last year’s, which has continued to increase every year as the county grows in population and infrastructure. A total of 23% of the budget will be directed at public safety, according to the county. Comal County Judge Sherman Krause said the infrastructure improvements throughout the county are driven by keeping up with the population growth. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of Comal County grew by over 50,000 res- idents from 2010-20. The county’s taxable value increased by 31.12% from $23 billion to $30 billion in the past year, which helped drive down the tax rate of $0.353515 per $100 valuation in 2021 to $0.0284715 for 2022, according to the county. “The [appraisal district] values went up so much, a lower tax rate generates the amount of money that we needed to fund the 2023 budget,” Krause said. The 2023 budget will also raise more revenue from total property taxes by a 2.8% increase compared to last year’s budget. More properties are also on the appraisal roll for 2022 compared to 2021, a factor that
$1.35M
SOURCE: COMAL COUNTY COMMUNITY IMPACT
also contributes to the county’s exibility with low- ering the tax rate. “We want to make sure that we’re responsive to the taxpayers and provide the services that our commu- nity needs while trying to keep the tax rate as low as we possibly can,” Krause said. Sta ng struggles While revenues are on the rise, an in-house anal- ysis conducted in February 2022 showed Comal County was paying signi cantly lower salaries than market demand, leading to trouble lling open positions. Several elected o cials and department heads expressed concern over un lled positions within departments during the county’s scal year 2022-23 budget workshops. The analysis also shows that most surrounding municipalities o er more competitive wages. “We can’t hire people at the wages we’re o er- ing,” Webb said. “For 2022, we’ll end up with about $5 million in salary savings from positions we couldn’t ll. The proposal is to put those savings into current employee salaries.” “IT WASN’T THAT LONG AGO WHEN WE POSTED A POSITION, SOMETIMES WE WOULD GET OVER 100 APPLICANTS FOR THOSE POSITIONS. TODAY, WE SOME- TIMES POST POSITIONS AND GET ZERO APPLICATIONS.” SHERMAN KRAUSE, COMAL COUNTY JUDGE
The Commissioners Court voted to increase salary wages for all positions, lled and un lled, by 8% to attract and retain employees. Webb says the wage increase does not apply to elected o cials. “We’ve lost a lot, and the sort of Great Resignation we’ve had has cost us a lot of experience, and in posi- tions that you really need to have continuity and pro- vide good service to the public,” Webb said. Jennifer Tharp, Comal County criminal district attorney, told the Commissioners Court that her department needs its ve open positions lled as quickly as possible due to the high volume of work her o ce is experiencing. “The sheri ’s o ce needs those people; I need my positions lled as well,” Tharp said. “We are drown- ing with the work but still trying to make sure that the public safety is maintained and that we get the job done and done at the level that our victims deserve.” Comal County Sheri Mark Reynolds said he has more than 70 un lled positions at the sheri ’s o ce and county jail, but since the announcement has been made to raise pay in the county there has been more interest in the open positions. Reynolds said that Comal County’s’ rapid growth led to the sheri ’s o ce’s request to add 16 deputy positions in the 2021-22 budget, but due to employees retiring or leaving for higher pay, the positions have not been able to be lled, and more have opened up. Five additional positions have been added for the sheri ’s o ce in the 2022-23 budget as well as several new sta positions at the county jail. “We’re already seeing the merit of the wage increase,” Reynolds said. “Several employees were applying for work elsewhere for higher pay but have
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