The Montgomery County Commissioners Court held a session on April 26. Commissioners also held a toll road authority hearing following the court session, although Precinct 4 Commissioner James Metts was not present. Here are three takeaways from the meetings:
Courthouse security concerns raised
During a presentation for a budget amendment relating to American Rescue Plan Act funds, Precinct 2 Commissioner Charlie Riley raised the possibility of devoting some of the funding toward upgrading the county’s courthouse security.
Amanda Carter, the county’s budget officer, presented the initial item to court. The amendment would have taken $10 million of ARPA funds and distributed $2 million each to the departments of the four county commissioners, as well as $2 million to County Judge Mark Keough.
Riley suggested using funds to have County Sheriff Rand Henderson take over courthouse security, criticizing the current staff for “not taking care of business.”
“I’m tired of the courthouse security we’ve got now,” Riley said. “I’m ready to put armed peace officers in the courtroom.”
Courthouse security had previously been listed as items in executive sessions—which are not open to the public—in 2019 and 2021. Henderson, who was present at the meeting, said moving peace officers to the courthouse would put the county “on the right track,” but cautioned the move would not be immediate.
“I’ve made proposals for the last two budget sessions ... it’s the good people inconvenienced when they go in [the courthouse], but if we catch one bad guy, it’s well worth it,” Henderson told commissioners. “It’ll take a little while to hire everyone [needed]. If I know I have a commitment, we can get started.”
Keough told Community Impact Newspaper he had intended to use funds to continue the transition to the county’s new Court at Law 6, which was approved in 2021. The court will begin taking cases in late 2023, Community Impact Newspaper previously reported.
“The object was, per [county District Clerk] Melisa Miller, we could move her to the Keshan Building and open space for two courtrooms,” Keough said. “If we can’t get it done in time, we find a court for them to work in until they have space.”
Keough and Henderson also discussed the sheriff’s involvement in the county’s facilities master plan, with the sheriff and judge taking issue with each other’s communication on facilities.
Commissioners approved $8 million split equally between the four commissioners, with $2 million set aside for courthouse security. Carter told Community Impact Newspaper that she would work with the sheriff to put together a courthouse security plan for presentation at the May 10 commissioners court meeting.
Fiscal year 2023 budget schedule approved
Montgomery County’s calendar for its fiscal year 2023 budgeting process was set at the April 22 meeting, with budget workshops set to take place Aug. 2-5, according to Carter.
Carter presented the process county departments will go through to submit new budget requests for the next year. Individual department requests are due June 15, and a preliminary budget will be distributed to commissioners by July 22.
Citizens will be able to comment on the preliminary budget beginning July 26, when a commissioners court meeting is scheduled to take place, Carter said..
During her presentation, Carter highlighted specific forms of inflation that would affect the county’s budget. She named energy costs, which increased 24.5% from the previous year; fuel, which increased 44.8%; and food, which increased 6.8%, as potential reasons for increased budget requests.
“All of our county vehicles, all of our first responders ... we’re seeing astronomical fuel increases, and we do believe that is going to increase our FY 2023 budget,” Carter said.
The county has passed no-new-revenue tax rates in the past three fiscal years, Community Impact Newspaper previously reported. No-new-revenue rates would produce the same tax revenue if applied to the same property in two consecutive years, according to the Texas Comptroller’s office.
Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack proposed to begin budget hearings on Aug. 2. Since the county’s monthly tax sale takes place in the commissioners' courtroom on the same date, the county will send notice to move the sale to a different location so the hearings can take place. The calendar was otherwise approved unanimously.
Toll road authority moves rate increase to January
During a separate session for the Montgomery County Toll Road Authority, three commissioners and Keough voted to move the toll road authority’s rate increase date to Jan. 1, 2023. Rates previously increased the first Saturday after Labor Day, according to MCTRA’s operations manager Robert Castañeda.
According to the bond agreement MCTRA signed in 2018, toll rates were originally set to increase annually in March, but COVID-19 concerns in 2020 when the tollway was completed pushed the date back. Castañeda said the move would bring the toll road authority in line with other toll authorities, which increase their rates in January, such as the Harris County Toll Road Authority.
“[The date change] would give us the 12-month purview of the previous year,” Castañeda said.
Keough questioned the need to increase rates at all, citing inflation and rising property appraisals in Montgomery County. He supported the date change, but said it was still necessary to address toll rates at a future session.
“We just heard about increases in inflation and appraisals; why can’t we leave the rates the same?” Keough asked. “We are for sure outperforming what we projected. People are getting killed, and now we're going to raise the toll rate on them?”
According to the MCTRA bond agreement, toll rate increases are calculated either by using the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index for the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria region or a minimum of a 2% increase. The CPI measures the average change in prices paid over time by consumers. County attorney B.D. Griffin described the agreement as a "covenant."
"There's a schedule in the bonds that says the rates must be raised for a number of year," Griffin said. "We do not want a technical default on those bonds."
The bond agreement also recommends a review of the rate increase policy every five years, but Castañeda said any review would be unlikely to change policy due to the toll road authority outperforming its bonds.
