<\/p>\n
The Harris County seal on the first floor of the county administration building.<\/p>\n
Yi-Chin Lee\/Staff photographer<\/p>\n
Leaders from 66 Harris County departments will appear before Commissioners Court this week\u00a0in a bid to protect their staff and initiatives from looming cuts driven by the county\u2019s budget woes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many departments could face layoffs as the county seeks to close its projected $129 million deficit, budget director Daniel Ramos said Monday. That figure assumes commissioners\u00a0 adopt the higher of the two property tax rates allowed under Texas law this fall. Choosing the lower rate would balloon the deficit to roughly $287 million.<\/p>\n
Harris County\u2019s fiscal outlook was similarly bleak last year<\/a>, when officials closed a\u00a0 $130 million deficit partly by implementing a countywide hiring freeze. But Ramos said the county has run out of easy options.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n VOTE RECORD: What’s dividing Harris County commissioners? We analyzed thousands of pages of records to find out.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cReally, where we’re at is people,\u201d Ramos said during Monday’s budget hearing. \u201cWe’re kind of past being able to dig into vacancies, dig into unspent funds. We’re really at the point where you’re making decisions about who’s staying and who’s going.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Department heads have identified potential reductions they will lay out in this week\u2019s budget hearings, said Nancy Sims, a political science lecturer at the University of Houston. Leaders are expected to offer a \u201cmenu\u201d of potential cuts, with commissioners ultimately deciding which to approve or reject.<\/p>\n \u201cThey’re going to plead their case on why some of their proposed cuts they cannot do and continue functioning at the same level,\u201d Sims said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The anticipated shortfall for the coming fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1, marks the fifth consecutive year the county has projected a deficit.<\/p>\n Among the driving factors, Ramos said, are sweeping pay raises \u2014 for civilian employees making less than $75,000 and for county law enforcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n The deputy raises, part of a measure aimed at matching pay for county law enforcement with the salaries offered by the Houston Police Department,<\/a> will, on average, increase salary costs by roughly 50% over the next five years. The law enforcement raises in the coming budget will add $73 million in costs compared\u00a0to the current fiscal year.<\/a><\/p>\n Combined, the raises for Harris County law enforcement \u2014 including the fire marshal, eight constables and Harris County Sheriff\u2019s Office \u2014 will add $292 million in annual expenses to the budget by the time the raises are fully implemented in 2030, according to county estimates.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n To afford that, Ramos said the county in the coming years will have to scale back services.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe’re really going to have to decide: \u2018Hey, what functions are we going to stop doing? What is the least impactful to our residents? What are the things that we’re going to really focus on maintaining?\u201d Ramos said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The raises came amid increasing inflation that has driven other costs, such as those related to fleet management, technical support and other service<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe government is no different than individual citizens. Everything is costing more,\u201d\u00a0Sims said. \u201cThe cost of everything is going up. It\u2019s no different than our own household budgets costing us more to live. The county is doing the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n The county faces a bleak fiscal outlook, but unlike the city of Houston, its budget process typically flies under the radar of most residents, Sims said. Sims isn\u2019t entirely sure why the county enjoys less scrutiny than its municipal counterpart, particularly considering its influence over property tax rates, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cThey’ve actually raised their taxes more than other entities in the area in recent years, and so it’s just fascinating to me that people take so little interest in what’s happening at the county,\u201d Sims said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Since 2023, Harris County has raised its tax rate 30 cents per $100 in appraised value to roughly 38 cents \u2014 a 23% increase over two years.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Budget hearings are expected to run through Thursday. Commissioners typically do not attend the meetings, but will occasionally make an appearance for departments they have an interest in. A complete schedule can be found on the Commissioners Court website.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Harris County seal on the first floor of the county administration building. Yi-Chin Lee\/Staff photographer Leaders from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-371695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371695","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=371695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}