[0:03] We're going to go ahead and get started on our, on our budget workshop.

[0:07] I don't know that this will take very long. I'm just, I just want to hear from commissioners and staff if

[0:13] you'd like before we start our meetings, just if there's any just

[0:17] overarching priorities. So we're going to go ahead and call the

[0:22] meeting to order thursday, may 28th, 2026 at I can get my

[0:30] phone on. 10:01 am. Commissioners, could I get a

[0:35] motion to skip the invocation and pledge? So move.

[0:39] and announcements. Got a motion by commissioner terrio, a second by commissioner horn.

[0:45] all in favor say aye. Aye. Any citizens' comments?

[0:50] none. No citizens' comments. All right, we'll go to item f1. Discuss current and

[0:54] future caldwell county budgetary needs in anticipation of upcoming

[0:59] fiscal year 2026-2027. And, and, go ahead, izzy.

[1:04] just want to remind the court, and all the department heads that I do have already some

[1:09] departments scheduled for budget talks, so they've already uploaded their fiscal year-end projection, year-end

[1:14] projections, and the department requested for '27. So we have quite a bit

[1:19] of departments scheduled already. If you as

[1:24] commissioners want to join any of your precinct budget talks, just give me a call, ask me, because I have scheduled so

[1:33] many I can't remember who has all done it or not. But if you want to join either one of your

[1:40] constable or your jp budget meetings, I can forward those meetings to you as I schedule them.

[1:46] okay, I'll go ahead and start, commissioners. One item that I, that I am going to ask you

[1:51] for this year, just given the,

[1:58] general overall civil

[2:03] unrest that we're experiencing in, in the country,

[2:08] in the state, and even in the county, I'm going

[2:12] to place into the budget to anywhere where there's a courtroom in the jp's offices or here

[2:18] we've already got the courtrooms covered over at the justice center,

[2:26] but putting in metal detectors, which will require also hiring some extra constables I mean,

[2:31] extra deputies for the so for bailiffs, because we'll have to have at least two, one

[2:36] at the metal detector, one back where they normally sit here, and the same for the

[2:41] other precinct offices. You know, and the reason for that, I think, should be clear. I mean, right

[2:46] now, I just feel like we're wide open in this building and

[2:52] in the other buildings. You know, I'll use precinct 2 as an example.

[2:56] if constable easterling and his deputy happen to be out, there's no security

[3:01] in that building at all. Here we have one person between everybody

[3:05] in this building and anybody with bad intentions. In any other county, you go

[3:11] to their meetings. I mean, they're yeah, you

[3:15] know, I just went through bastrop county and I had to walk

[3:20] through two metal detectors to get to judge klaus. So I

[3:26] think it's important. I think it's time that we did this. There's, you know, in the past there's been some pushback,

[3:32] but, you know, anybody that doesn't agree that we live in a

[3:37] dangerous world now is kidding themselves. And I feel

[3:44] personally responsible for the safety of people in our buildings. And so we want

[3:49] to make sure that when you come to work, you feel safe and you feel like, you know,

[3:53] there's somebody standing between you and somebody with bad intentions.

[3:58] and the very least we can do is take away pocket knives and

[4:02] guns at the door. So we're going to hopefully do that.

[4:07] we've kind of done a preliminary stab

[4:11] at the budget. We should we're anticipating

[4:15] about $1.5 million more this year. So there's some money to work with.

[4:20] I haven't gotten with purchasing at all to even see what what a metal detector costs. I know what the bailiffs

[4:27] cost, so that, that'd be fairly easy. But, and we'll have, we'll have

[4:32] to add staff. Another route to go would be to, you know, if the constable,

[4:38] we want to hire deputy constables to do the precinct offices and a bailiff here. But I'll have

[4:43] to talk that over with sheriff lane and see which way he wants to jump.

[4:48] but one way or the other, I just feel that's extremely

[4:53] important, and the time has come for us to do that.

[4:58] so that's, that's one of my priorities that I'd like to get done this year, in addition to all the normal

[5:03] funding stuff. I've got a few

[5:08] things, but no, go ahead, go ahead, commissioner. I don't have much.

[5:14] I applaud the effort, judge, on the security too. I don't, you're not going

[5:19] to get any disagreement out of me on that. The only other thing that I thought, we

[5:24] discussed this last year a little bit, and I don't know exactly where it stands, just

[5:30] on the, just looking forward on any, I know this is not going to be really budgetary related,

[5:34] on where we're going for office space and things of that nature.

[5:39] so I've been talking to a place called americas, and

[5:44] I got this idea from we were remember when we were

[5:49] at conference and judge jimmy silva, they went out, they had to go out for an rfq and they

[5:55] ended up hiring this company called americas. And it's very similar to what we've done with the road bond where you hire a

[6:00] general engineering consultant. You can hire a general

[6:04] consultant and they would then, once we got them, they would do

[6:09] all the procurement hire the contractors, and it speeds the process

[6:13] along quite a bit. And so they can go

[6:20] out and do this procurement in a way that it would be done outside

[6:25] of the governmental world. Chambers county did this

[6:30] on their jail, and it brought the jail in under budget and early. And so

[6:35] I've had some conversations with them.

[6:40] we would obviously have to do an rfq for that consultant,

[6:47] whoever that wound up being. There's not, honestly, not a lot of people in that space. As a matter

[6:52] of fact, as far as I know, they're the only ones in texas really doing it, but we still need to go

[6:57] out and seek somebody. But by doing that, they would hire an architect,

[7:03] they would take care of the architects and the contractors and all those things.

[7:08] but we could then start looking at what's it going to cost for a jail? What's it going

[7:13] to cost for extra office space over at the justice center?

[7:18] you know, we have that piece of land there and we've had that conversation. I did have an

[7:23] architecture firm, architectural firm take a first stab at that.

[7:27] and they kind of designed the taj mahal. It was $45 million. And I said, I will be burned in effigy on the courthouse

[7:33] lawn if I even suggest that. So we got to do something less fancy. It

[7:38] was really nice. But, you know, we've talked about rodeo arena and a show barn out at the

[7:45] expo center. I can think of a number of

[7:49] projects that we've discussed. Animal shelter. Animal shelter. Thank you. I was like, I'm

[7:55] forgetting something. I'm just going to keep rambling until it comes to me.

[7:59] thank you. That was it. And but, you know, we can then get

[8:04] the cost on those. We can prioritize them,

[8:08] decide whether or not we need to do can do it with the co or if we need

[8:13] to go out for bonds. But I think until we go through that process and hire a firm

[8:19] to help us with that, then we're just going to kind

[8:25] of sit here and spin our

[8:29] wheels. And this way we can get some hard cost assigned to it. Prioritize it during this

[8:33] budget session and then figure out how we're going to tackle it. And, and, you

[8:38] know, jail probably looking at $150 million easy. The

[8:42] that building over at the, at the, justice center, I'm gonna guess, would be about

[8:47] $30 million. The rodeo arena, so barring probably looking

[8:52] at $10 million by the time all in by the time you do that.

[8:56] animal shelter. I can't remember. I got somebody look at that, commissioner, and I don't

[9:00] remember what it came in at. But it seemed like $15 to $20 million. Yeah, $15, $20

[9:07] million. And so, but we're getting to a point where we need all these things. And the, you know,

[9:12] the only way to start is to first figure out what the cost is going to be and put an escalator

[9:18] on them so that we know that if we kick the can down the road,

[9:23] every year we kick that can, it gets more expensive. There's never any time cheaper

[9:28] than right now to build something. And I know I sound just like a general contractor,

[9:32] because I am, but it's true. Cost of money today is less than the cost

[9:37] of money is going to be this time next year. So I would hope that we can get that

[9:45] in the budget. And get the rfq done in

[9:50] october and kind of start down this path. I mean, we could start the rfq now,

[9:58] you know, and at least get somebody teed up. And so if we do pass it in the budget,

[10:02] then we can do that. Something else that I think is

[10:08] important, and we're going to have to do an rfq for this as well,

[10:12] but we need a strategic plan in this county. We don't have one. We fly by the seat

[10:19] of our pants. It's pretty much whatever pops in my head and goes into the budget is what we do every

[10:25] year. And I can tell you that my wife would tell you that that's a terrible idea. And also, you know, a lot

[10:31] of that stuff just resides in my head.

[10:36] you know, if I step off the curb and get run over by the beer truck, I mean,

[10:41] we got a great staff, but, you know, I talk to people all day, every day,

[10:46] and I don't always share everything with the staff. And so I want to, you know,

[10:50] have some conversations around what a strategic plan would look like and what it's going

[10:55] to cost. They're not inexpensive, but I've had some conversations with one firm, and, you know,

[11:00] to get a good solid 5-year strategic plan, probably looking

[11:05] at a quarter million dollars. To do it. Of course, we'll go

[11:10] out for rfq on that and see, you know, what other firms have to say.

[11:15] but I think that's really important.

[11:21] the city of lockhart has a strategic plan. I guarantee you most, most of the counties in

[11:26] our msa have a strategic plan. And along those lines, I'm also going to suggest I

[11:32] don't know what we would call it, county administrator

[11:38] position, something of that nature that would, that would work hand in hand

[11:44] with richard and I and danny and purchasing and grants so that there is continuity.

[11:50] if I lose the election, something happens to me or any future judge, you

[11:55] have that person there that's that's sort of apolitical.

[12:02] they don't they're not affiliated with a party. Their job is just

[12:07] to manage the budget, manage the procurement, manage all those things,

[12:12] and work with staff in both auditor and legal and

[12:17] purchasing and grants. And they would always be there, and they would be a consistent

[12:22] person because we know that people lose elections or, you know, something happens

[12:27] to people. So, you know, I know, you know, 2 years

[12:34] commissioner terrio, god bless him, is going to retire, at least from this. I doubt

[12:39] he'll quit working, but he's going to retire from this.

[12:45] but same here, you know, I don't want to do this forever. I like my job, but, you know,

[12:50] I've got some grandkids I'd like to spend a little more time with. So someday I'm going to they stop.

[12:54] so I think that's important, that position. So I'm going

[12:59] to bring it forward, and it's up and it's, you know, as always,

[13:04] commissioners, it's up to you guys whether or not we do that. But I think it's important.

[13:08] and so those are some, some more

[13:13] of mine that I'm considering. Donald, where are we at

[13:19] on the miles

[13:26] of road that are still unpaved?

[13:32] with the ones that we're in the process of, once we get those paved,

[13:37] we'll be down to 18. 18? 18 miles.

[13:44] wow. Yeah, we're almost done. We're so close to done, we can taste it.

[13:49] and the rain's been slowing us down a little bit. If everything goes good,

[13:54] I'm hoping by the end of summer the weather holds up, we should be just about done. Okay, but then we got a bunch

[13:58] of roads that we're going to have to start rehabbing and, uh, level up and then chip seal.

[14:03] and that's a probably I'm glad you brought that up because now

[14:07] we're going to have to switch over from, you know, dump trucks hauling gravel

[14:12] to roads to asphalt zippers and and pavers and, you know, things like that. So we gotta

[14:16] we're gonna save some money, but we're just moving it around. We're swapping spits,

[14:21] so to speak, because we're gonna have to buy some different equipment.

[14:26] yeah, a couple of the brush cutters are like 10 years old this year, and we're having troubles

[14:32] with them. So that's those yeah, cut the brush

[14:37] off the sides, keep it back. I know we both of them were

[14:41] in the shop this year, and one of them, the backhoe there was like 3

[14:50] or 4 pieces of equipment that's major expenses.

[14:55] okay, would you just do me a favor and work with purchasing

[15:02] and get some quotes on those so that when we get into our budget meetings,

[15:11] we can kind of have a list of those things and try to prioritize them and get you

[15:15] what you need. All right, so, so, donnie, so with,

[15:19] with the roads in each precinct,

[15:24] you have the ability to understand what percentage of the roads has been done

[15:29] in that specific precinct? Like 80% precinct 4, 90%? Do you have that ability? Uh, all of them should be. I mean,

[15:34] right now right now we're down to about 28.

[15:40] and like I said, we've got like the ones that are almost ready. I think rusty's got a couple.

[15:44] the longest ones are my precinct. Yeah. We have biggs and salt

[15:49] flat. Yeah, we're just with the rain, we're finishing touching them up and then we got to oil them and then chip

[15:55] seal them. We've got the rock and everything. So then

[16:00] like I said, that leaves one in each precinct that's

[16:05] over a mile. Yeah, well, two.

[16:13] and bj wants us to do his laugh. So, probably answer your question, commissioner,

[16:18] it's hard to put a percentage on it, but I'd say they're all about 95% done. I know they doing a good job.

[16:26] yes, sir. I mean, by the end of the year for sure, every one of them will be paved.

[16:33] but that, by the way, that's quite an accomplishment, donald. Thank you. If the weather holds

[16:38] out, like I said, hopefully they should be done by the end of the year, by the end of the summer. How

[16:43] many miles were unpaved when we started this? It was north of

[16:48] 200, right? Uh, when I started, we had 200 and 230, 240 that were gravel roads.

[16:52] now we're down to 18, and that's been about 5 years. Pretty good. That's been a

[16:58] mighty effort. About the last 2 and a half years, I think this year here

[17:04] we've gotten almost 60 miles so

[17:09] far. That's great. And that

[17:14] equipment that you got us, the new chip spreader, the distributors, that made our job

[17:20] a lot easier to get them done a lot quicker.

[17:25] good. Well, hopefully we can keep getting you the equipment that you need so we can

[17:29] maintain them. Now that we've done all that work, we've got to maintain them.

[17:33] so, and those pieces of equipment we'll still be using because once we level up the roads and we'll be chip sealing

[17:38] them after that to put a good fresh coat

[17:42] on top. Good deal. All right, yeah, the other,

[17:51] item and I don't know if this is something realistic,

[17:55] but looking at the revenue side

[18:00] of the budget, it you know, we have the potential

[18:04] to get some windfalls, you know, as these big things come in, whatever they may be.

[18:09] and that has a big impact

[18:13] on our tax rate, you know, or can. Yeah, right now we're

[18:18] it'll just go down normally because of the 312 agreements. Yeah, but,

[18:23] and we've talked about this, and I think it's a great time

[18:29] to bring it up, is we're rapidly reaching the point because we've done some 312

[18:34] agreements with pilot payments back, just the two that we've done,

[18:39] the pilot payments back are going to be in the neighborhood of $20

[18:43] million a year.

[18:47] we won't real, prime will start getting those payments, but that's a small amount,

[18:52] and it's just depending on when they start. And we still we're making some

[18:57] changes to that 312, so it's yet to come through court.

[19:02] and well, if we if I think if we get to a point where we

[19:07] start seeing those mid-budget cycle, I'll need to check

[19:13] to see what the process is, uh, if we know we're going

[19:20] to start getting these, these payments. But more than likely, those pilot payments are going

[19:24] to be just like when we get our tax payments, and we'll get them in january. In the lump sum. And so we'll

[19:29] have to, you know, we'd have to wait to budget for that till the next cycle.

[19:34] but I will say, with all that said, if prime were to start tomorrow,

[19:40] we would probably in january be looking at getting a pretty

[19:44] chunky check,

[19:51] a couple million extra dollars.

[19:55] and then going forward, theirs is a smaller portion of that $20 million than, say,

[20:00] edge would be. But theirs doesn't say starting upon

[20:05] commencement of construction.

[20:10] however, we're also waiting around for them to close. So,

[20:15] but their pilot payments would begin, though,

[20:20] when they complete you know, a building, and theirs are significant.

[20:24] they're huge. It's about $14 million neighborhood every year. So, you know,

[20:30] I know there's been a lot

[20:35] of pushback about data centers, but I guess this is one of the pros of them,

[20:40] is that they do spin off a considerable amount of revenue with very little drain on

[20:45] on county resources. And I understand citizens concerns about health and safety, and

[20:53] hopefully those will get addressed

[20:59] at the legislature this year, and we'll figure

[21:03] out what that's going to look like. But in the meantime, those are here,

[21:08] and we've done agreements with them. So I was thinking maybe I don't know if this would be something the

[21:12] strategic plan could address but, you know, if we are in situations where we're not

[21:17] doing 312 agreements and, you know, planning in advance how

[21:24] to minimize that financial impact to us, because I mean,

[21:30] caldwell county, you know, is like it or not, it's a going to be under that type

[21:35] of growth pressure,

[21:41] not necessarily from those specific uses,

[21:45] but manufacturing type uses. And having a plan, you know,

[21:50] going forward on the revenue side, you know,

[21:55] might be useful on figuring out and planning for

[22:01] for our budget. Yeah, and so, and I do plan

[22:06] to have a conversation with jennifer ritter this year because of those pilot payments

[22:11] starting. Once those start in earnest and we're seeing $20 million a year,

[22:16] then the pressure for a 3-12 agreement goes down

[22:24] as far as the tax revenue side somewhat, but and it would be

[22:28] really beneficial to our taxpayers because they would have a much lower rate and we'd

[22:33] still be realizing some pretty significant income. So,

[22:39] but having said that, they may still be important because unless something happens

[22:43] at the legislature and to give us more local control, and we're going to try

[22:48] to bring a bill through, I'm going to spend all day in austin friday trotting

[22:56] around the capitol with one in my hand trying to get support.

[23:00] but unless we get that local control, we're still going to have to get them into the das to get the things

[23:05] we're getting. And so it's really hard to get somebody

[23:11] to go down that da path without giving some concessions on appointments. It's almost

[23:16] impossible. And we all know that. And so,

[23:22] you know, so it's just, it's going to, this,

[23:26] this is going to be one of the most critical legislative sessions that has happened

[23:30] in this state in probably 100 years. And, you know,

[23:35] so depending on what happens there, well, you know, it'll kind of direct

[23:41] our course and we won't know that until may of '27, if we even know it then.

[23:46] there may be special session after special session. So, and it does not look like there

[23:51] will be any special session called prior to the start

[23:56] of the regular session on data centers or,

[24:03] anything else, you know. And they I got a lot of flack

[24:07] for even bringing it up, but in our region, which is the austin msa, and we are part

[24:12] of that there are two users that samsung uses 5.5 billion gallons

[24:17] of water a year, and tesla uses

[24:24] 500 million gallons of water a year. We're holding

[24:29] data centers to 20,000 a month, so that's 200, and if there's 10 of them, that's 2 million.

[24:34] if there's 20 of them, that's 4 million. So compared to tesla and

[24:42] samsung and what micron would have used might, when micron was looking here and we were

[24:48] courting them and nobody protested micron, 7 million gallons a day was going

[24:54] to be their water usage. And so and chip manufacturer is

[24:58] not going to go away. I think data centers will get some guardrails put around them,

[25:03] hopefully during this legislative session. But it will be around water usage and power usage and

[25:08] transparency. I think that's going to be what you see is the

[25:13] legislature is going

[25:17] to tell them, you're going to have to tell us how much water you plan to use and how

[25:21] much power you plan to use. And I honestly believe that's

[25:26] all that's going to come from it. But that's better than nothing.

[25:31] than what we have right now. So the last thing I had was to, I think make sure we're taking

[25:36] into account the matches for these potential grants. We've got that safe streets

[25:41] grant where we're going to be looking at maybe $1 million on a match. And so if

[25:49] that, I think, can come out of a bond, our bond proceeds. Yes.

[25:55] but, we'll need to make sure we're coordinated

[26:00] on that. And then the 2720 project, that'll,

[26:04] that'll have a match associated with it also. I know there's some money that we've collected

[26:09] from private entities.

[26:13] yeah, we have about $15 million coming from trac to help, but

[26:18] that's dropping the bucket compared to that. Whole project,

[26:23] but still it could help with our match a lot. So, and

[26:28] then there it looks like likely that the moving project on 183 at magnolia, we might get a late funding

[26:33] on that later this year. So could that be through campo? That's true,

[26:38] campo. Okay, that's actual construction, and, so we'll have a match

[26:43] associated with that. Okay, all right. And I think most all those matches can come

[26:47] from the bond, but still we need to make sure we're, we're accounting for that

[26:53] during the process. What else, commissioners? Anything?

[26:59] okay, well, if not, we can

[27:03] go ahead and have a motion to adjourn. I'll move

[27:10] to adjourn. Motion to adjourn by commissioner westmoreland. Do

[27:15] we have a second? Second. Second by commissioner horne.

[27:19] any discussion? Not. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, we're adjourned at 10:28.

May 28, 2026 Commissioners Court Workshop

Agenda

Transcript