Hill County elected officials and department heads presented funding requests for their departments when the Hill County Commissioners Court held budget workshops Monday, July 21, and Tuesday, July 22.
Commissioners heard many of the usual requests for budget adjustments based on increased costs or workloads, but the discussions led to a few broader conversations about long-term needs, department restructuring and how to address federal funding cuts that may impact Hill County residents.
The sheriff’s office, which manages several large budgets and has the largest employee count in the county, was included in several of the discussions.
County Judge Shane Brassell informed the court that he would be appointing Deputy Emergency Management Coordinator Chris Jackson, who is also a sergeant at the sheriff’s office, as emergency management coordinator effective October 1.
The change is part of a plan to move emergency management to the sheriff’s office to increase coordination and allow the departments, which have similar missions, to share resources.
In Texas, the county judge is the head of emergency management but has the authority to appoint an emergency management coordinator.
“We’ve seen in the past month and a half some situations that have arisen where having an emergency management coordinator plugged directly into the sheriff’s office has been a major benefit,” said Brassell.
Under the plan, emergency management will become a division of the sheriff’s office with its budget managed by Jackson, the sheriff and the chief deputy. Jackson will also be promoted to a lieutenant and take on the duties of supervising dispatch. Emergency management employee Chris Clark will also work under the sheriff’s office as radio administrator.
Brassell said that he has informed current Emergency Management Coordinator Tom Hemrick of the change, and the sheriff’s office has offered him a part-time position in the department, but he has not yet expressed his wishes.
The sheriff’s office is also looking to add four new deputy positions, with two bolstering the criminal investigations division. Chief Deputy Tim Westmoreland said that area has been operating with the same staffing levels for more than two decades. “The work of a criminal investigator is so much more than it used to be,” he told commissioners, citing the increased volume of digital evidence, subpoenas and time-consuming casework. “They are drowning every day they come to work.”
Sheriff Barnes said that the added positions would provide a crimes against children investigator and two investigators targeting narcotics and high crime areas. He added that the current narcotics investigator is frequently pulled away for other duties.
The crime reduction program has been one of the sheriff’s goals, and he said that he is constantly fielding calls from citizens asking when something will be done about drugs. In order to improve the situation, the sheriff said he needs the personnel to make it happen.
“I think it gives us the extra eyes out there and the extra means to really hit these areas hard and show the folks here that we don’t want your drug activity here,” said Barnes. “We don’t want your crime here. You can move out of the county or you can stop.”
Judge Brassell echoed the need for more enforcement, saying that word of law enforcement activity — or the lack of it — spreads quickly. “We’ve seen it when a particular deputy leaves the area,” he said. “It goes through that culture like a wave of either ‘Yay, they’re gone’ or ‘Oh no, that person is back.’ I think a unit like that would go through very quickly.”
Barnes and Westmoreland also highlighted some of the areas in which the sheriff’s office is working to save money for the county. The sheriff said that he had abandoned the idea of using a dietary services provider in the jail, because it would not change much in regards to the jail staff’s current duties and the limited services provided would come with a huge price tag.
Barnes said that he is also networking with other law enforcement agencies to benefit the county. Ellis County Sheriff’s Office has offered to give Hill County 60 tasers and related equipment, for instance.
The new administration has been working the past seven months to get the department’s budget under control, Westmoreland said. The chief deputy said that in the area of software maintenance, for instance, the department was 370% over budget the day the new administration took office before they spent any money. As bills have come in for expenditures that were not budgeted, they are being addressed, properly budgeted or renegotiated in some cases.
Indigent Healthcare Coordinator April Cook presented a significant change to the court, saying that she believes the indigent medical budget needs to more than double for the coming fiscal year due to federal Medicaid changes.
“The reason is because of that ‘big beautiful bill’ that went through at the federal level,” she said. “That is cutting off a lot of people from Medicaid and also impacting the rural hospitals. They’re taking away a lot of funding from the rural hospitals.”
Cook said that while it is too early to tell how much the changes will impact her services, she is expecting a large increase in need, and her calls for service have already increased dramatically.
“I anticipate that a lot of people who are being kicked off Medicaid are going to come and try to get on these services,” she said. “Since it is taking money away from the hospitals…they can’t take on the extra load, and I don’t want the only county hospital we have to close down just because they’re drowning and we didn’t do anything.”
Overall, Cook requested that the budget be increased by $155,000 to $275,000. She said that she hopes to have money to return at the end of the fiscal year, but she wants to be prepared without going over budget.
Cook also noted that she will be asking the court to increase the income guidelines for Hill County from the state-required 21% of the federal poverty guidelines up to 50% of the guidelines to assist those losing Medicaid coverage. “If this gets approved, that will increase the applicant income from the allowed $274 (monthly) for a household of one to $652 for a household of one, with incremental increases for the number of individuals listed in the household.
The program is designed to provide basic medical services to extremely low-income residents and must be renewed every 90 days.
Commissioners also addressed needs in their precincts and the challenge of maintaining roads on limited budgets.
Precinct 2 Commissioner Larry Crumpton said that he has completed 80 to 90 miles of chip-sealed roads, but there is no money to keep them repaired. “I’m wasting my money to try to improve roads,” he said. “People are still begging me to chip seal, and I don’t have the money to redo roads.”
He said that residents often say that they pay their county tax and their road should be fixed. “People don’t understand that we get 8% divided four ways,” said Crumpton.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Jim Holcomb pointed out how little of a property owner’s tax bill goes towards county roads and the high cost of materials and projects.
Brassell said, “It’s pretty well known that my priorities are safety of the community — police, fire and EMS — and roads.” The judge said that he is working through an idea to possibly add money to a contingency fund that commissioners could draw from when their construction materials budget is expended.
“It’s going to take us a while to plan and figure out a long-term solution for our roads,” said Brassell. “That’s not a simple conversation we can have in one day.” He added that what he can do is try to remove some road blocks to help commissioners.
While the state recommends that the county keep an amount equal to 25% of general fund expenditures in its reserve fund, the county currently has 42% in reserves. The local policy set by commissioners is to keep 35% in reserves.
Brassell said that the amount the county is holding in reserves is a little high. “Those are tax dollars that we took that we’re not giving a return on,” he said. “I would like to see that lowered slightly.” The judge said that the county can still maintain its savings account while giving taxpayers a return on service.
He emphasized that a master plan is needed to address the long-term road situation, but using some of this money in commissioners’ budgets for road materials could provide some relief.
Budget discussions were expected to continue this week after certified appraisal rolls were finalized by the appraisal district. The county judge is expected to file a proposed budget the first week of August.
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