At an Aug. 9 budget workshop, Montgomery County commissioners discussed a potential infrastructure bond measure as well as issuing certificates of obligation to cover major projects as the county already stands $7 million over budget and faces potentially raising the tax rate for fiscal year 2023-24.

What you need to know

During the Aug. 9 budget workshop, Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack proposed the county seek certificates of obligation, or COs, in order to cover a number of capital improvement projects. County Judge Mark Keough countered the idea with holding an infrastructure bond election within the next year to fund projects.

The breakdown

The county currently has $12 million in capital improvement projects, which were proposed to be added to the current 10-year plan. Montgomery County Budget Director Amanda Carter said at the Aug. 9 meeting that based on the current agreed preliminary budget, commissioners will have to adopt a tax rate higher than the no-new-revenue rate in order to cover expenses.
  • Current preliminary budget for FY 2023-24: $328.32 million
  • Tax rate needed to fund current preliminary budget: $0.3689 per $100 valuation
  • No-new-revenue rate: $0.3479 per $100 valuation
What they’re saying


“Cash funding your [capital improvement plan] is just not a long-term solution that really is recommended by any financial officer,” Carter said. “We've gotten away with it for, you know, since I've been your budget officer, but we also had a nice healthy fund balance. That fund balance in capital improvement has been depleted, and there is no more.”

Keough said: “I think we need some type of a bond if we're going to be doing this sort of thing and plan on it next year to be able to fix the things that need to be fixed around here, and we can justify it. We've kicked all this can down the road so many times.”

“I think we get the bond counsel and the investment adviser in here, and we start to talk about, you know, we firm these numbers up and look at what the possibilities are. Looking at doing it as a general obligation bond with voter approval, you could do it as a CO,” Noack said.

What’s next


The final day of budget workshops will start at 8:30 a.m. Aug. 10, with a vote on approving a tax rate scheduled later in the afternoon.

The court directed Jason Millsaps, chief of staff for Keough, to bring an item on the next Commissioners Court agenda to outline bond and CO proposals.