Montgomery County commissioners heard budget requests from several department heads Aug. 12, while County Judge Mark Keough began the day's budget workshop calling for an economic development director to help bring tax relief to the county.
“The county is in desperate need of some tax relief,” Keough said. “Right now, 20% of our tax revenue ... comes in from commercial; the rest is from residential households.”
Keough said he would like to see the county have someone in place to bring together local governmental entities in a regional discussion about economic development.
“What I'm opting for is to put somebody in place that will represent the county for the purpose of bringing together these entities and getting the opportunity at some of the things that we haven't gotten,” Keough said.
The second day of discussions otherwise revolved around presentations from department heads outlining requests for fiscal year 2026-27.
What was discussed
Department heads from emergency management, roads and bridges, courts, the sheriff and other offices presented their needs to the commissioners Aug. 12, but commissioners said no decisions would be made that day.
The sheriff’s department will see an increase in needs, Sheriff Wesley Doolittle said. Doolittle projected a 4.8%, or $5.8 million, increase in departmental needs, the majority of which—$3.1 million—is in salaries.
Other needs include IT hardware, of which Doolittle estimated $268,296 will be needed for replacement monitors and laptops. He said the preliminary amount provided for overtime, $315,000, also falls short of the $428,500 needed.
Calls for service have gone up 56%, he said, as the county adds about 30,000 to 40,000 residents a year.
"I've often heard some folks on this court say you need at least one officer for every 1,000 new residents. And we're adding 60 [to] 70,000 new residents. We're going to have to add some cops," he said.
He said there were 150 new positions the department could use, but it is asking for 21 new positions.
“When we hit a million people, we’re going to be in real trouble relying on [the Department of Public Safety] to handle these things," Doolittle said.
Commissioners acknowledged the challenge of meeting departments' growing needs, particularly in public safety.
"We gotta figure out a way to do something," Precinct 2 Commissioner Charlie Riley said. "We're going to decide on all those positions tomorrow. ... I think there's a way to get to it."
The four county constables also presented their budget requests Aug. 12, earlier than original plans to have them present Aug. 13.
Another detail
The road and bridge department did not have major new funding requests, noting that a proposed $250,000 traffic hardware request may instead be funded through future road bonds. In addition, Deputy Chief of Staff Jason Smith said a $3.5 million upgrade to modernize the traffic IT network to current cybersecurity standards could be funded through an existing federally funded project.
Otherwise, there is a $58,500 software request to track federally funded road projects so the county does not miss out on opportunities where they are eligible for funding.
“It’s incumbent that we have projects that are ready ... to submit ... or that we’re making sure that we’re meeting our milestones so that your projects don’t get kicked out of the [Transportation Improvement Program] and moved out to a further out letting date where we lose the available funding that’s available,” Smith said.
What else?
Election costs are also an issue, Budget Officer Amanda Carter said. She said the cost of holding an election has increased, but the county’s elections department has not requested additional funding.
An initial request from the elections department was almost a 20% increase from last year, but not calling for a bond election in November will reduce some of that, Carter said.
“This is a million-dollar hit on our budget each year, but we could save money if we brought it in-house,” Carter said of elections operations in the county.
One challenge is that polling sites could be open additional hours if future legislation is passed changing those hours, according to discussion at the meeting.
Officials agreed to request that Elections Officer Suzie Harvey participate in the discussion Aug. 13.
Other discussions included court needs, such as staffing for the new 523rd District Court, which officials said would include six bailiffs. Discussion centered around how those bailiffs would be deployed, as only two are needed for the court, and the current budget allows for three officers. The other three are roaming and are needed to maintain overall service.
As the additional deputies will not directly be needed for that court, commissioners discussed moving the positions to another departmental budget.
Before you go
Among other departments discussed, Carter said there were two changes in the medical examiner’s office—making a part-time position full-time and upgrading the forensic lab manager to a supervisor. In the animal services department, she said there was a savings of $210,000 after a recalculation took place within that budget.
Jason Millsaps, executive director of the county's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said he would like to see several positions switch from grant funding to local funding, as grant funds can be delayed and the process is affecting employee morale, he said. He said he has four grant-funded employees and four that are not grant-funded.
“I just want to build morale up with my four guys and make sure they're taken care of and we don't have this ax over their head every year,” Millsaps said.
Commissioners said throughout the second day of the workshops that they were not making decisions.
Budget discussions continued Aug. 13.
