As Cameron County Commissioners Court prepares the county’s budget for the 2022-2023 fiscal year, it is already dealing with some tough decisions.
Facing a $5.3 million deficit, and department heads seeking salary increases for employees and creation of new positions, County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr., told the department heads that the county’s budget is not in good shape.
“We are in a tough spot this year and tough decisions are going to need to be made,” Trevino said at the July 19 Commissioners Court meeting, where the 2022-2023 budget was discussed and several department heads requested salary increases and new positions.
Trevino cited a drop in revenue from the courts, rise in gas costs, insurance costs, and the loss of funding from non-county inmates that had been housed in the county jail.
In a Thursday interview, Trevino said it’s unknown whether raises would happen for county employees but stated “It’s still too early to tell but right now. The situation does not appear to lend itself to be able to address a lot of the task that we’re presented. But we are still early in the budget process, we have a lot of work to do, and our goal has been to continue to raise the overall salary schedule of all of our county employees.”
Trevino added that although he had hoped there would be a decrease in the county tax rate, it would stay the same to keep the county funded.
Judge Gabriela Garcia, of the 138th state District Court, was the first to speak at Commissioners Court, seeking salary increases for her two employees.
“We don’t want to lose these employees because they are hard to replace and if you practice before the 138th … you know the heart of that court is Mrs. (Irma) Gilman, she keeps that court moving,” said Garcia, as she requested salary increases for two of her employees of about 1% total.
Commissioners Court July 19 received a request of $812,000 for new positions and $255,000 for salary increases.
“At the end of the day, it’s very difficult for Commissioners Court to have a dollar and have a thousand dollars’ worth of request or needs, not to say that any of those requests are not good or too much or not enough, “Trevino said. “That’s not the issue. It is what we can do with the resources that are available to us and unfortunately this particular year … our budget at the moment is not in good shape.”
Rose Gomez, chief of the Juvenile Probation Department, told Commissioners Court she is having a hard time hiring and keeping staff because of the low pay.
“We are undergoing critical staffing shortages in our detention center and our post residential programs. I currently have 33 vacancies that we cannot fill. Twenty-one of those are juvenile supervision officers, Gomez said. “This last two days I had five resignations on the spot,” she said.
Many of the employees are leaving to go work for other detention centers where they are earning between $18 to $20 an hour, Gomez said.
Gomez said the juveniles in the county’s juvenile system are “a handful. It is not just about the mental health and substance use, we are talking about terroristic threats, we all know what happened in Uvalde and school districts are asking us to serve in their safety plans. The kids that we have right now are felony offenses, we had to prioritize who we detain. I can assure you that there are some kids out in the community that we normally would lock up, but we also have to consider the staffing shortage.”
Gomez said she is willing to absorb two fulltime positions and to secure state funds to help fund her department.
Asking to hire additional employees was Cameron County Elections Administrator Remi Garza, who said activities in his office had increased significantly. He is seeking an employee to help with voter registration, an employee to work in the Elections Department warehouse and a third employee for information technology. He is also seeking a 5% increase for employees in his department.
Precinct 1 Constable Norman Esquivel Jr. requested that an additional four deputy constables be added to his staff. He cited the growth of his precinct that covers from the southmost area of Brownsville to the Laguna Madre area.
“The same exceptional service that we provide to the people in the Laguna Madre is the same service I want to provide to the people in that area in Brownsville,” Esquivel said.
Esquivel also cited an increase in calls for service, which went up to 564 calls in 2021 compared to 256 in 2020. He said his department provides funeral escorts free to individuals in his precinct and provides security for the justice of the peace court in Precinct 1.
Commissioners Court will continue its budget discussions at its next meeting scheduled for Tuesday.
