In anticipation of a tight budget year, Travis County is asking all department heads to find ways to cut spending by 5%. Those suggestions are due to budget office staff on April 1.<\/p>\n
Travis County Budget Director Travis Gatlin said the county isn\u2019t considering a hiring freeze or laying off employees as part of the cuts, adding there will be \u201cminimal to no impact\u201d on county services, which include roads and parks, health care and housing for low-income residents, affordable child care and other services. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a meaningful deficit, but we think we\u2019ll bridge the gap,\u201d Gatlin said. \u201cThis isn’t crisis mode.\u201d<\/p>\n
The county is projecting a $13 million shortfall on the high end, largely due to skyrocketing health insurance costs. Last year, the county spent $2.6 million on health insurance for its employees. This year, health care is estimated to cost somewhere between $14 and $17 million \u2014 roughly as much as it cost to institute a counsel at first appearance program<\/a> in the county jail, which required hiring dozens of attorneys, judges, security officers and interpreters.<\/p>\n Gatlin said it\u2019s still unclear why health care costs have risen so sharply, but suspects it\u2019s a combination of an increase in high-dollar claims and more pharmaceuticals being prescribed.<\/p>\n Gatlin said a major slowdown of new construction projects also means fewer property tax dollars coming into the county. He projects that in 2027, the county could see its first negative growth rate since 2011.<\/p>\n Gatlin\u2019s said his projections are conservative, and could change for the better once property value estimates from the Travis Central Appraisal District are released in late July. <\/p>\n The county is required by state law to approve a balanced budget before the next fiscal year begins in October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In anticipation of a tight budget year, Travis County is asking all department heads to find ways to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,70439,74585,9829,74583,74584,74586],"class_list":{"0":"post-186651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news","11":"tag-brigid-shea","12":"tag-travis-county-budget","13":"tag-travis-county-commissioners-court","14":"tag-travis-county-jail","15":"tag-travis-county-parks","16":"tag-travis-gatlin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}