Fort Bend County Commissioners Court approved the county's budget of $290.24 million on Sept. 9. The 2015 budget reflects a more than 5 percent increase in revenue from property taxes—or about $10.9 million—from last year's budget.

"Because of the increase, the county was able to fund capital improvement projects that it may not have been able to without the increase," said Pamela Gubbels, director of finance and investments with Fort Bend County. "Just as important, our ending balance as a percentage of the 2015 budget is over 16 percent."

For fiscal year 2015, the county will receive nearly $235 million from property tax revenue and more than $4.7 million in sales tax revenue.

In order to maintain an excellent bond rating by rating agencies, Fort Bend County must maintain an adequate fund balance to account for emergencies. Budget policy stipulates that the county will keep a 15 percent fund balance for 2015, Gubbels said.

The county was able to increase funding for nearly every function in the 2015 budget. Funding for county roads and bridges increased to nearly $23 million, an increase of more than 11 percent from last year.

In addition, the county adopted a tax rate of $0.49476 per $100 of valuation—a 1 percent decrease—or $0.005—from last year.

The county will spend 58.61 percent of its budget on salaries and personnel, 34.7 percent on operations and training, 6.36 percent on capital acquisitions and 0.33 percent on information technology.