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Officials in Hidalgo County are considering a $316 million budget for fiscal year 2025, which begins on Jan. 1, 2025.
Highlights of the budget include a 5% cost of living increase in pay for employees across the board, the addition of more than 30 people to the county’s payroll, and more than $2 million in savings in the county’s self-funded health plan.
However, few other details were divulged during a budget workshop, which lasted all of a dozen minutes on Tuesday morning.
In a brief presentation, Dagoberto Soto, the county’s director of budget and management, spent part of his time recapping budget highlights he had first presented a week prior, then answering questions from county commissioners seeking to justify next year’s proposed expenditures.
“Some key takeaways that I wanted to share and highlight … we are showing a balanced budget,” Soto said.
Soto said that the county should have enough to fund its expected operational costs if the officials choose to adopt the same property tax rate as last year — 57.5 cents per $100 valuation.
“At this point in the proposed budget, we are not tapping into (the) unrestricted fund balance or anything to offset any big expense of anything that we foresee,” Soto said.
At that tax rate, Soto expects Hidalgo County to be able to generate enough new revenue to fund the nearly 7% increase in operating costs he expects to see in the coming year.
That additional $19.7 million in expenses will come largely through expanding the county’s workforce, as well as adjusting their pay to keep up with inflation.
It’ll cost Hidalgo County about $7.3 million to provide a 5% pay bump to its 2,695 employees in 2025.
A vast majority of the 36 newly created positions will be in the county’s law enforcement departments, where 29 new positions are being budgeted for, according to an eight-page budget summary Soto presented on Tuesday.
The county will also realize a $2.2 million cost savings in its self-funded health insurance plan, the budget director said.
“That equates to about a 5% decrease in the individual cost per employee,” Soto said.
How much that health plan will cost, however, remains unclear, as that expenditure was not included as part of the budget summary.
Meanwhile, officials will spend less to house inmates outside of Hidalgo County next year than last year, or other recent years’ past.
The county budgeted to spend some $7 million this year to house a percentage of its inmates at jails in Starr, Jim Hogg and Brooks counties to relieve severe overcrowding here.
All the while, repairs were also being made to a once abandoned jail in Willacy County — a jail that officials hoped would solve the overcrowding issue.
But renovations to the facility were taking longer than expected. As a result, when Soto first began to meet with department heads about their budget needs for 2025, the sheriff’s office presented him with what he referred to as a “worst case scenario” funding request.
That request assumed that the Willacy County jail would remain unusable and that Hidalgo County would continue to send between 350-450 inmates to out of town jails each month.
In that scenario, the sheriff estimated a need for some $12 million to continue housing inmates elsewhere.
But that worst case didn’t come to pass. Instead, the Willacy jail opened and began taking in inmates on July 26. Willacy will have an estimated capacity of 450 inmates, according to news releases from the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office.
Nonetheless, even with that facility now open, Hidalgo County continues to house inmates at other jails — and will continue to do so in the coming year.
But rather than it taking $12 million to do so, Soto estimates those out-of-county costs to clock in around $5 million.
Soto referred to the lower room and board cost as a $2 million savings compared to the current fiscal year; however, housing inmates continues to be one of the single largest expenditures the county has.
But again, precisely how expensive it will be to house inmates in 2025 remains unclear because no specifics were included in the eight-page budget summary.
The finalized budget book for fiscal year 2024, however, shows that Hidalgo County typically divides those costs among several different categories.
That document shows that officials budgeted to spend $17.6 million on the Willacy County jail this year, plus an additional $41.6 million for the Hidalgo County jail.
Meanwhile, the sheriff’s office received a $34.9 million appropriation for FY 2024.
All told, those figures equal more than $94.1 million for 2024.
Back at the workshop on Tuesday, county leaders questioned Soto on the county’s overall budget increasing by nearly $20 million — from just over $296 million to $316 million.
“Do you, as our budget manager, who has experience in these sorts of things, have any question of the need to have this $19,671,000 that we added to our budget as unneeded?” County Judge Richard F. Cortez — a certified public accountant by trade — asked Soto.
“As unneeded, no. These are to provide the services … to the citizens,” Soto replied.
The judge then reiterated his question.
“So, if we were only to ask for the money that we got last year, then we wouldn’t have enough money to meet this year’s budget? Or would we?” Cortez said.
“Based on what we wanted to do, no, it wouldn’t have been enough,” Soto replied.
Cortez then added that he hoped those answers would quell questions from residents who “question our process to come up with these numbers.”
Lastly, Cortez asked about a department that isn’t mentioned at all in the budget summary — the office of the Hidalgo County auditor — an independent arm that receives its funding from appropriations made by the Hidalgo County Commissioners Court, but whose oversight is governed by the Hidalgo County Board of Judges.
“But we have no control over the auditor’s office. … Do we have control over their budget? I mean, if they need more people to do their work, can we just say no to them?” Cortez asked.
Cortez also asked if that department is also asking for additional staff in 2025.
Soto replied that 22 new staffers have joined the auditor’s office since September 2023, but that there are no requests for additional staffers in 2025.
Pressing the issue, the county judge continued, asking about increasing pay for county workers with highly specialized skills, likening their compensation to a zero sum game.
“So, we either have a choice to pay them more or not have any accountants, lawyers and engineers, correct?” Cortez said.
Soto replied that it’s important for the county to remain competitive.
“I appreciate that, because I think that everybody is making a big deal over what the taxpayers need to know — well, this is part of what the taxpayers need to know,” Cortez said with a chuckle.
“Of how we go through this, and the different issues that we have to face,” he added.
By statute, Hidalgo County must approve its budget and tax rate before the end of September.
