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Hidalgo County officials got their first look at the proposed budget for fiscal year 2025 during a workshop on Tuesday.
Among the highlights revealed during the work session are a proposed 5% cost of living increase in pay for all county workers, several new job openings, and a modest increase of property tax revenues compared to last year.
But perhaps the most striking detail disclosed during the 15 minute discussion is that the cost of housing Hidalgo County’s jail inmates will continue to soar, even after officials began transferring dozens of inmates to a newly reopened Willacy County jail late last month.
PROJECTED JAIL COSTS
Dagoberto Soto, the county’s budget and management director, began his presentation on jail costs by saying that he expected to achieve a $2 million cost savings to house local inmates at jails outside the county.
Almost since the day it opened in 2003, the Hidalgo County Adult Detention Center has been at or over its maximum capacity of approximately 1,200 inmates.
In recent years, that overcrowding problem spurred stern warnings from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. And so, the county embarked on a series of agreements to house some of its inmates at other jail facilities throughout South Texas.
But housing hundreds of inmates at jails in Brooks, Starr and Jim Hogg counties has cost the county millions each year.
For the 2024 fiscal year, Hidalgo County had budgeted $7 million to pay for that out-of-county room and board expense, Soto said during Tuesday’s workshop.
But earlier this summer, when county department heads first began drawing up their budget wishlists, it appeared that the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Department would be requesting 71% in additional funding for FY 2025, which begins on Jan. 1, 2025.
Initially, the sheriff’s office planned to request $12 million to pay those out-of-county costs in the coming year, Soto said.
In recent discussions between the sheriff’s office and the budget department, however, that figure had instead been whittled down from 2024’s $7 million appropriation to just $5 million for 2025.
That decrease came in large part because the Willacy jail opened on July 26.
“Due to the Willacy County (jail) being operational and … taking in county inmates, that cost should reduce,” Soto said.
“We want to take just a reasonable approach and just reduce (projected costs) by $2 million, so there is a $2 million cost savings in the room and board expense,” he added.
But that drew questions from the commissioners, who asked how much the sheriff’s office was still requesting for out-of-county inmate costs.
Soto confirmed that that line item, as the proposed budget currently stands, will be $5 million.
He said that the initial request for $12 million had been made prior to the Willacy jail opening its doors and thus represented a “worst case scenario.”
THE WILLACY FACTOR
Still, Hidalgo County Judge Richard F. Cortez wondered at the high cost now that the facility is beginning to house Hidalgo inmates.
“Is that (figure) consistent now with what they (the sheriff’s office) requested based on their last communication with you?” Cortez asked Soto of the $5 million revised funding request.
“Yes, correct. Yes,” Soto replied.
Precinct 2 Commissioner Eduardo “Eddie” Cantu seemed nonplussed by that answer and asked the budget director how much the county is currently spending to house prisoners at the Willacy jail.
“We’re looking at… $19 million,” Soto replied.
That’s because Hidalgo County is enmeshed in a 50-year lease of the Willacy jail — a lease that began in November 2022 at a rate of $3 million per year.
Further, in April 2023, the county hired LaSalle Corrections, a for-profit prison firm out of Louisiana, to serve as third-party administrators to oversee the day-to-day operations of the rural jail.
Hidalgo County agreed to pay LaSalle $13.9 million the first year, despite the jail being unfit for occupancy in 2023 and thus standing empty that year.
On April 1 of this year, LaSalle’s contract called for the county to pay it $14.5 million. That price will continue to increase by about $500,000 per year over the eight-year life of the contract.
In the meantime, it took more than a year and another $2 million paid to La Feria-based construction firm Noble Texas Builders in order to renovate the once abandoned jail — a task Noble completed in June.
The county has also spent hundreds of thousands more in other costs that were not part of Noble’s contract, including more than $426,000 for a new HVAC system that the county approved the same day as the budget workshop.
WHERE ARE THE INMATES?
It appeared those figures were swirling through the minds of the commissioners as they questioned Soto over the proposed jail costs on Tuesday.
“I mean, we have $19 million in new expenses and we’re still close to the $7 million” Cantu said, referring to the Willacy jail costs and the 2024 budget appropriation for housing out-of-county inmates, respectively.
Cantu further wondered how many inmates the Willacy jail can hold, and how many must remain housed elsewhere.
“We still have people out there,” Judge Cortez said.
According to the sheriff’s office’s own news releases, the Willacy jail can accommodate 450 inmates.
But data obtained from the Texas Jail Commission in response to a Texas Public Information Act request show that the out-of-county population has hovered at or near that number for years.
Recently, the jail commission removed from its website inmate census data from jails across the state going back to 2022, citing its inability to verify the self-reported numbers. But those figures are still publicly available via public information request.
Those figures show that as of July 1, Hidalgo County had been housing 437 inmates at other jails.
The lowest out-of-county census came last September, when some 335 inmates were being housed elsewhere.
But in September 2022, the farthest back that block of data go, Hidalgo County was housing 453 inmates in other jails — a number just over the capacity of the Willacy jail.
Ultimately, Soto said there’s still time to discuss the finer points of the inmate housing appropriations before the county must approve the budget late next month.
OTHER BUDGET ITEMS
As for other figures Soto presented on Tuesday, the county is expected to see a modest increase of 6% in revenues thanks to higher property valuations.
It’s the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020 that property valuations haven’t risen by double digits.
“We seem to be leveling out and we are projecting a 6% increase of property tax revenue, which equates to about $15 million” in new revenue if the county maintains the same tax rate of 57.5 cent per $100 valuation, Soto said.
In 2024, valuations rose by more than 15%, which generated more than $34 million in additional revenue compared to the prior year, according to a copy of the 2024 Hidalgo County budget.
Nonetheless, Soto estimates this year’s more modest rate of growth will be enough for the county to grow its rainy day fund by $9 million in 2025.
And while revenues appear to be cooling, expenditures are continuing to rise.
The county’s expenditures are projected to increase by just under $25 million, or about 8.4%, according to figures shown in Tuesday’s budget summary.
Some of those additional expenses will come from a proposal to give county workers a 5% cost of living increase, which will cost about $7.3 million, as well as a so-called “pay plan” at the Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office worth $1.4 million, Soto said.
Requests for about 35 new positions to be created throughout the county, as well as to implement personnel adjustments or supplemental pay, will cost about $2.4 million to fully fund, Soto said.
The next budget workshop is tentatively set for Sept. 17.
