Local · Trusted · Free
The Morning Impact — your neighborhood's most important stories, delivered every morning.
County offices innovate to save money
tumbnail
Various Harris County offices were left reeling after the 10 percent cut in the 2011 fiscal year.
The new budget—March 2012 through February 2013—is nearly the same as last year's $1.3 billion.
The budget cut in 2011 of $140 million was a result of the county seeing a drop in property values since 2009. That translated to less property tax money—the county's main source of revenue, including Cy-Fair's precincts 3 and 4.
Although the Harris County Appraisal District estimated total home values at $266 billion for 2011, $10 billion more came in than expected.
"They looked at the economy [in January 2011], the value of homes and businesses and were thinking things were getting worse," said Frank Bruce, the county's director of budget services. "But Houston's economy recovered a little faster because we didn't have that huge run up in values like in other cities, then a crash.
Precinct 4 Constable Ron Hickman cut 99 staff members, but was able to rehire 40 employees through the year.
"We brought them back through strategies and initiatives that we came up with like acquiring new contracted positions and grant positions," Hickman said. "We have steadily been able to increase our number so we are back up close to a staff of 400."
Working with Harris County Judge Ed Emmett's office, the constable secured a $1.2 million grant that helped fund the positions. The department also partially supplemented its budget by providing services for schools, municipal utilities districts and subdivisions, Hickman said.
"We were doing some of these things before, but we had to step back and retool and come up with some fresh ideas," he said. "We knew that all of these positions had to be covered 100 percent with no tax dollars."
While community members were concerned that the reduction in staff would impact public safety, Hickman said, there was little change in service.
When fielding emergency calls, the constable's office had a five minute, one second average response time before the cut. The time increased to five minutes, 40 seconds through the year, but now nearly a year later it is down to five minutes, 15 seconds.
"By spreading those cuts across the precinct, looking at retirements and other measurements, we were able to keep our response time virtually the same for our constituents," Hickman said.
The constable's office had to cut clerical support staff despite litigation continuing to be filed at an increasing rate, Hickman said.
"We have more and more paper work that has to be delivered in order for civil cases to move forward so we are implementing iPads in the field so that officers can do their own paperwork," he said. "This way, they don't have to wait until they get back to the office to complete the process."
While most departments saw a 10 percent decrease in funding, Precinct 4 commissioner's office may have been affected the most.
Jerry Eversole, Commissioner Jack Cagle's predecessor, had to cut staff down to 313 from 425.
"In essence, they went through all the different departments and made them as lean as they could," Cagle said. "No services were lost, but we had to do much more work with fewer people."
Precinct 4's parks department became innovative with regard to their hours such as closing earlier when permitted, Cagle said.
"Different times of operation are necessary at different parks," he said. "Some are baseball parks where you need staff present at later hours. Others are daylight parks where we need people there from dawn to dusk. Our staff was able to recognize those differences and make the employees available when they were really needed."
Many park volunteers helped by donating their time.
"We have always had great volunteers, but I do think that following the budget cut they stepped up more because we really needed them," Cagle said. "Their help has been immeasurable."
The senior centers in Precinct 4 saw a reduction in staff, forcing most to close on Saturdays.
Cagle was able to hire back some entry-level workers in the parks department and make improvements with money outside of the general fund budget. Thanks to a 2007 bond, Precinct 4 completed seven miles of hike and bike trails, built one dog park and broke ground on another.
Precinct 3 Commissioner Steve Radack did not need to reduce his staff because he previously cut it.
By using county prisoners, those on probation and community service workers, the precinct benefitted from free labor on various projects.
"A lot of the stuff that we do is labor intensive like lawn maintenance, construction and having people work in our mechanic shops." Radack said. "Luckily, we were able to get a lot of free labor out of our court systems."
Precinct 3 was not entirely unaffected, Radack explained.
"Sometimes we may have to delay things for a little, but as we come out of this economic problem, I think we will continue to be in pretty good shape," he said.
