By Tony Farkas
[email protected]
COLDSPRING — Elected officials have filed a grievance against the San Jacinto County Commissioners Court over the lack of pay raises included in the proposed budget for the next fiscal year.
At Wednesday’s regular meeting, County Judge Fritz Faulkner said that he has filed a preliminary budget with the state, and that includes a dip in the property tax rate — from .50 per $100 valuation, which is down from .53.
With the changes in valuation of property, however, the average homeowner would see and increase of $37.16 in their tax bills.
Faulkner said that with all the additional expenses in the county this year, largely due to weather events and jail needs, the new budget does not contain raises, and some grievances were filed by elected officials and that a grievance committee needed to be formed.
While it wasn’t on the regular agenda, the matter of instituting a grievance committee was taken into a closed session, and then voted on after the court reconvened.
Faulkner said the county would draw nine names from a hat of people who had served on past grand juries. That committee will meet at 9 a.m. Sept. 6.
In other business, the court:
•approved an amended resolution regarding at TxCDBG grant affection Fostoria Tram Road, which shortens the length of the project;
•approved a clarification to the March 23, 2022, regular meeting minutes to reflect Langford Community Management Services was hired for hazard mitigation plan development;
•approved an agreement with DETCOG for a web Emergency Operations Center;
•approved a cost match with DETCOG for the Genasys Alert System;
•approved a disaster declaration to be used in securing a border security grant, provided the Sheriff’s Office provides a copy of the grant application for county review;
•tabled approval of overtime pay and comp time payout due to shortages in manpower, and thought we added enough people, was supposed to shorten comp time; however, the jail still has five open slots;
•approved bond renewals for Cheryl Walker and Elaine Thompson in the elections office;
•approved dates and times for early voting and number of workers necessary; and
•approved the presentation of the annual audit.
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