With the deadline to balance the 2022-2023 fiscal year budget drawing closer, Cameron County Commissioners Court will meet again Tuesday to continue budget discussions.
The meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. inside the Historic Dancy Building at 1100 E. Monroe Street in Brownsville.
Budget discussions have been taking place over the last three weeks as commissioners attempt to balance a budget that has a $5.2 million deficit.
Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. attributed the deficit to a drop in revenue from the courts, rise in gas costs, insurance costs, and the loss of funding from non-county inmates who had been housed in the county jail.
The Cameron County Sheriff’s Department has been at the forefront of recent discussions when commissioners court learned that $1 million in overtime pay was being dished out in addition to $1.9 million to feed inmates housed in the county’s jail facilities.
The $1.9 million cost to feed inmates is in part due to when COVID-19 started to affect the county about two years. Before that, trustees in the jails would help distribute meals to the inmates. However, when the pandemic hit, trustees were no longer allowed to distribute meals.
The company providing the meals to the inmates had to increase personnel to distribute the meals and added to the costs being billed to the county.
At last week’s meeting, it was suggested that members from the sheriff’s department and the budget office get together and develop solutions to deal with the overtime and the feeding of the inmates.
Commissioners Court is also dealing with requests from department heads seeking raises for their employees, plus the hiring of additional personnel.
In other business, commissioners court will vote on allowing the county’s elections department to contract with the local jurisdictions through a joint election agreement with the city of Los Fresnos, Brownsville Independent School District, Los Fresnos Consolidated Independent School District, La Feria, South Texas and Santa Maria independent school districts, city of Santa Rosa, Laguna Madre Water District, city of Port Isabel and the city of La Feria. The agreement would allow the county to run these elections on the same day as the Nov. 8 general election.
