Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. held a press conference at commissioners court chambers Tuesday afternoon to address what he said were inaccurate “complaints, allegations and comments” made by county Sheriff Eric Garza at a Sept. 22 press conference at sheriff’s department headquarters in Olmito.
Trevino said the commissioners court’s decision to eliminate 55 positions within the sheriff’s department was not done to exert “political pressure” on the department, as Garza charged, but rather was necessary to balance the county’s budget, a task made harder due to a $2.6 million revenue shortfall from the department and $1.9 million over budget in overtime spending.
Trevino kicked off the presser by taking aim at Garza’s comments regarding the outcome of a lawsuit filed by the commissioners court against the sheriff’s office over Garza’s actions regarding courthouse security shortly after being elected in 2020. Garza claimed that the court “ruled in my favor” that the sheriff’s office “has full legal authority to take control over courthouse security.”
“It was a victory for the sheriff’s office and the citizens of Cameron County, but it came with political consequences,” Garza stated.
The consequences, Garza claimed, were that Trevino and the commissioners court slashed the number of sheriff’s deputies providing courthouse security from 15 to 7, putting county employees and visitors to the courthouse at risk in the process. Trevino, however, said the commissioners court lawsuit against the sheriff’s department did not end in a judge’s ruling, since the case was dismissed after both sides reached a settlement agreement and that, furthermore, Garza agreed to the 15-to-7 reduction in the course of settlement negotiations.
Trevino also took issue with Garza’s contention that the commissioners court refuses to give the county’s detention offices and deputies a pay raise even though they’re among the most underpaid in the country, according to Garza.
Trevino said the county’s entire law enforcement budget was $61.7 million in 2019 and with the 2023 fiscal year starting Oct. 1 will stand at $67.7 million. He acknowledged that 2021 saw a drop — from $64.6 million to $64.1 million — due to pandemic-related revenue losses. Still, the commissioners court has taken steps in recent years to boost county employee salaries, including those of law enforcement and detention officers, and that the October 2022 budget year saw salaries increase to “100 percent of market value” for all county employees under compensation plan approved several years ago.
Once the 2023 fiscal year starts Oct. 1, the sheriff’s department will have seen 9 percent budget increase since 2018, Trevino said.
“Those numbers are going up,” he said. “That’s funding more, not funding less.”
Garza also took Trevino and the commissioners to task for eliminating 55 vacant jail positions and five sheriff’s department positions, though Trevino said the Tuesday that the move was necessary due in part to a decline in revenue in the sheriff’s office when Garza stopped accepting federal inmates and inmates from Hidalgo County.
“Those inmates had been a source of revenue for the county and the sheriff’s office for many, many, many years,” Trevino said. “The 2023 jail division budgetary decrease is directly correlated to the elimination of surplus vacant jail positions.”
Garza said his department stopped taking the federal and Hidalgo County inmates in order to stay in compliance with the detention office-to-inmate ratio mandated by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. Trevino said he didn’t understand why Garza would stop accepting those inmates — losing that revenue flow in the process — since neither the TCJS nor the U.S. Marshal’s office had never indicated to commissioners that the county was out of compliance.
“In mid-budget-year 2021-2022 we were looking at a deficit of between $3 million and $5 million as a result of the loss of the federal inmates and Hidalgo County inmates,” Trevino said.
Even with the 50 eliminated jail positions there are still 20 vacant jail positions, he said, adding that as of Oct. 24 addition jail positions will be “unfrozen,” leaving 44 vacant positions in the jail division.
