We're going to go ahead and get started on our, on our budget workshop.
I don't know that this will take very long. I'm just, I just want to hear from commissioners and staff if
you'd like before we start our meetings, just if there's any just
overarching priorities. So we're going to go ahead and call the
meeting to order thursday, may 28th, 2026 at I can get my
phone on. 10:01 am. Commissioners, could I get a
motion to skip the invocation and pledge? So move.
and announcements. Got a motion by commissioner terrio, a second by commissioner horn.
all in favor say aye. Aye. Any citizens' comments?
none. No citizens' comments. All right, we'll go to item f1. Discuss current and
future caldwell county budgetary needs in anticipation of upcoming
fiscal year 2026-2027. And, and, go ahead, izzy.
just want to remind the court, and all the department heads that I do have already some
departments scheduled for budget talks, so they've already uploaded their fiscal year-end projection, year-end
projections, and the department requested for '27. So we have quite a bit
of departments scheduled already. If you as
commissioners want to join any of your precinct budget talks, just give me a call, ask me, because I have scheduled so
many I can't remember who has all done it or not. But if you want to join either one of your
constable or your jp budget meetings, I can forward those meetings to you as I schedule them.
okay, I'll go ahead and start, commissioners. One item that I, that I am going to ask you
for this year, just given the,
general overall civil
unrest that we're experiencing in, in the country,
in the state, and even in the county, I'm going
to place into the budget to anywhere where there's a courtroom in the jp's offices or here
we've already got the courtrooms covered over at the justice center,
but putting in metal detectors, which will require also hiring some extra constables I mean,
extra deputies for the so for bailiffs, because we'll have to have at least two, one
at the metal detector, one back where they normally sit here, and the same for the
other precinct offices. You know, and the reason for that, I think, should be clear. I mean, right
now, I just feel like we're wide open in this building and
in the other buildings. You know, I'll use precinct 2 as an example.
if constable easterling and his deputy happen to be out, there's no security
in that building at all. Here we have one person between everybody
in this building and anybody with bad intentions. In any other county, you go
to their meetings. I mean, they're yeah, you
know, I just went through bastrop county and I had to walk
through two metal detectors to get to judge klaus. So I
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,
but, you know, anybody that doesn't agree that we live in a
dangerous world now is kidding themselves. And I feel
personally responsible for the safety of people in our buildings. And so we want
to make sure that when you come to work, you feel safe and you feel like, you know,
there's somebody standing between you and somebody with bad intentions.
and the very least we can do is take away pocket knives and
guns at the door. So we're going to hopefully do that.
we've kind of done a preliminary stab
at the budget. We should we're anticipating
about $1.5 million more this year. So there's some money to work with.
I haven't gotten with purchasing at all to even see what what a metal detector costs. I know what the bailiffs
cost, so that, that'd be fairly easy. But, and we'll have, we'll have
to add staff. Another route to go would be to, you know, if the constable,
we want to hire deputy constables to do the precinct offices and a bailiff here. But I'll have
to talk that over with sheriff lane and see which way he wants to jump.
but one way or the other, I just feel that's extremely
important, and the time has come for us to do that.
so that's, that's one of my priorities that I'd like to get done this year, in addition to all the normal
funding stuff. I've got a few
things, but no, go ahead, go ahead, commissioner. I don't have much.
I applaud the effort, judge, on the security too. I don't, you're not going
to get any disagreement out of me on that. The only other thing that I thought, we
discussed this last year a little bit, and I don't know exactly where it stands, just
on the, just looking forward on any, I know this is not going to be really budgetary related,
on where we're going for office space and things of that nature.
so I've been talking to a place called americas, and
I got this idea from we were remember when we were
at conference and judge jimmy silva, they went out, they had to go out for an rfq and they
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
general engineering consultant. You can hire a general
consultant and they would then, once we got them, they would do
all the procurement hire the contractors, and it speeds the process
along quite a bit. And so they can go
out and do this procurement in a way that it would be done outside
of the governmental world. Chambers county did this
on their jail, and it brought the jail in under budget and early. And so
I've had some conversations with them.
we would obviously have to do an rfq for that consultant,
whoever that wound up being. There's not, honestly, not a lot of people in that space. As a matter
of fact, as far as I know, they're the only ones in texas really doing it, but we still need to go
out and seek somebody. But by doing that, they would hire an architect,
they would take care of the architects and the contractors and all those things.
but we could then start looking at what's it going to cost for a jail? What's it going
to cost for extra office space over at the justice center?
you know, we have that piece of land there and we've had that conversation. I did have an
architecture firm, architectural firm take a first stab at that.
and they kind of designed the taj mahal. It was $45 million. And I said, I will be burned in effigy on the courthouse
lawn if I even suggest that. So we got to do something less fancy. It
was really nice. But, you know, we've talked about rodeo arena and a show barn out at the
expo center. I can think of a number of
projects that we've discussed. Animal shelter. Animal shelter. Thank you. I was like, I'm
forgetting something. I'm just going to keep rambling until it comes to me.
thank you. That was it. And but, you know, we can then get
the cost on those. We can prioritize them,
decide whether or not we need to do can do it with the co or if we need
to go out for bonds. But I think until we go through that process and hire a firm
to help us with that, then we're just going to kind
of sit here and spin our
wheels. And this way we can get some hard cost assigned to it. Prioritize it during this
budget session and then figure out how we're going to tackle it. And, and, you
know, jail probably looking at $150 million easy. The
that building over at the, at the, justice center, I'm gonna guess, would be about
$30 million. The rodeo arena, so barring probably looking
at $10 million by the time all in by the time you do that.
animal shelter. I can't remember. I got somebody look at that, commissioner, and I don't
remember what it came in at. But it seemed like $15 to $20 million. Yeah, $15, $20
million. And so, but we're getting to a point where we need all these things. And the, you know,
the only way to start is to first figure out what the cost is going to be and put an escalator
on them so that we know that if we kick the can down the road,
every year we kick that can, it gets more expensive. There's never any time cheaper
than right now to build something. And I know I sound just like a general contractor,
because I am, but it's true. Cost of money today is less than the cost
of money is going to be this time next year. So I would hope that we can get that
in the budget. And get the rfq done in
october and kind of start down this path. I mean, we could start the rfq now,
you know, and at least get somebody teed up. And so if we do pass it in the budget,
then we can do that. Something else that I think is
important, and we're going to have to do an rfq for this as well,
but we need a strategic plan in this county. We don't have one. We fly by the seat
of our pants. It's pretty much whatever pops in my head and goes into the budget is what we do every
year. And I can tell you that my wife would tell you that that's a terrible idea. And also, you know, a lot
of that stuff just resides in my head.
you know, if I step off the curb and get run over by the beer truck, I mean,
we got a great staff, but, you know, I talk to people all day, every day,
and I don't always share everything with the staff. And so I want to, you know,
have some conversations around what a strategic plan would look like and what it's going
to cost. They're not inexpensive, but I've had some conversations with one firm, and, you know,
to get a good solid 5-year strategic plan, probably looking
at a quarter million dollars. To do it. Of course, we'll go
out for rfq on that and see, you know, what other firms have to say.
but I think that's really important.
the city of lockhart has a strategic plan. I guarantee you most, most of the counties in
our msa have a strategic plan. And along those lines, I'm also going to suggest I
don't know what we would call it, county administrator
position, something of that nature that would, that would work hand in hand
with richard and I and danny and purchasing and grants so that there is continuity.
if I lose the election, something happens to me or any future judge, you
have that person there that's that's sort of apolitical.
they don't they're not affiliated with a party. Their job is just
to manage the budget, manage the procurement, manage all those things,
and work with staff in both auditor and legal and
purchasing and grants. And they would always be there, and they would be a consistent
person because we know that people lose elections or, you know, something happens
to people. So, you know, I know, you know, 2 years
commissioner terrio, god bless him, is going to retire, at least from this. I doubt
he'll quit working, but he's going to retire from this.
but same here, you know, I don't want to do this forever. I like my job, but, you know,
I've got some grandkids I'd like to spend a little more time with. So someday I'm going to they stop.
so I think that's important, that position. So I'm going
to bring it forward, and it's up and it's, you know, as always,
commissioners, it's up to you guys whether or not we do that. But I think it's important.
and so those are some, some more
of mine that I'm considering. Donald, where are we at
on the miles
of road that are still unpaved?
with the ones that we're in the process of, once we get those paved,
we'll be down to 18. 18? 18 miles.
wow. Yeah, we're almost done. We're so close to done, we can taste it.
and the rain's been slowing us down a little bit. If everything goes good,
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
of roads that we're going to have to start rehabbing and, uh, level up and then chip seal.
and that's a probably I'm glad you brought that up because now
we're going to have to switch over from, you know, dump trucks hauling gravel
to roads to asphalt zippers and and pavers and, you know, things like that. So we gotta
we're gonna save some money, but we're just moving it around. We're swapping spits,
so to speak, because we're gonna have to buy some different equipment.
yeah, a couple of the brush cutters are like 10 years old this year, and we're having troubles
with them. So that's those yeah, cut the brush
off the sides, keep it back. I know we both of them were
in the shop this year, and one of them, the backhoe there was like 3
or 4 pieces of equipment that's major expenses.
okay, would you just do me a favor and work with purchasing
and get some quotes on those so that when we get into our budget meetings,
we can kind of have a list of those things and try to prioritize them and get you
what you need. All right, so, so, donnie, so with,
with the roads in each precinct,
you have the ability to understand what percentage of the roads has been done
in that specific precinct? Like 80% precinct 4, 90%? Do you have that ability? Uh, all of them should be. I mean,
right now right now we're down to about 28.
and like I said, we've got like the ones that are almost ready. I think rusty's got a couple.
the longest ones are my precinct. Yeah. We have biggs and salt
flat. Yeah, we're just with the rain, we're finishing touching them up and then we got to oil them and then chip
seal them. We've got the rock and everything. So then
like I said, that leaves one in each precinct that's
over a mile. Yeah, well, two.
and bj wants us to do his laugh. So, probably answer your question, commissioner,
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.
yes, sir. I mean, by the end of the year for sure, every one of them will be paved.
but that, by the way, that's quite an accomplishment, donald. Thank you. If the weather holds
out, like I said, hopefully they should be done by the end of the year, by the end of the summer. How
many miles were unpaved when we started this? It was north of
200, right? Uh, when I started, we had 200 and 230, 240 that were gravel roads.
now we're down to 18, and that's been about 5 years. Pretty good. That's been a
mighty effort. About the last 2 and a half years, I think this year here
we've gotten almost 60 miles so
far. That's great. And that
equipment that you got us, the new chip spreader, the distributors, that made our job
a lot easier to get them done a lot quicker.
good. Well, hopefully we can keep getting you the equipment that you need so we can
maintain them. Now that we've done all that work, we've got to maintain them.
so, and those pieces of equipment we'll still be using because once we level up the roads and we'll be chip sealing
them after that to put a good fresh coat
on top. Good deal. All right, yeah, the other,
item and I don't know if this is something realistic,
but looking at the revenue side
of the budget, it you know, we have the potential
to get some windfalls, you know, as these big things come in, whatever they may be.
and that has a big impact
on our tax rate, you know, or can. Yeah, right now we're
it'll just go down normally because of the 312 agreements. Yeah, but,
and we've talked about this, and I think it's a great time
to bring it up, is we're rapidly reaching the point because we've done some 312
agreements with pilot payments back, just the two that we've done,
the pilot payments back are going to be in the neighborhood of $20
million a year.
we won't real, prime will start getting those payments, but that's a small amount,
and it's just depending on when they start. And we still we're making some
changes to that 312, so it's yet to come through court.
and well, if we if I think if we get to a point where we
start seeing those mid-budget cycle, I'll need to check
to see what the process is, uh, if we know we're going
to start getting these, these payments. But more than likely, those pilot payments are going
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
have to, you know, we'd have to wait to budget for that till the next cycle.
but I will say, with all that said, if prime were to start tomorrow,
we would probably in january be looking at getting a pretty
chunky check,
a couple million extra dollars.
and then going forward, theirs is a smaller portion of that $20 million than, say,
edge would be. But theirs doesn't say starting upon
commencement of construction.
however, we're also waiting around for them to close. So,
but their pilot payments would begin, though,
when they complete you know, a building, and theirs are significant.
they're huge. It's about $14 million neighborhood every year. So, you know,
I know there's been a lot
of pushback about data centers, but I guess this is one of the pros of them,
is that they do spin off a considerable amount of revenue with very little drain on
on county resources. And I understand citizens concerns about health and safety, and
hopefully those will get addressed
at the legislature this year, and we'll figure
out what that's going to look like. But in the meantime, those are here,
and we've done agreements with them. So I was thinking maybe I don't know if this would be something the
strategic plan could address but, you know, if we are in situations where we're not
doing 312 agreements and, you know, planning in advance how
to minimize that financial impact to us, because I mean,
caldwell county, you know, is like it or not, it's a going to be under that type
of growth pressure,
not necessarily from those specific uses,
but manufacturing type uses. And having a plan, you know,
going forward on the revenue side, you know,
might be useful on figuring out and planning for
for our budget. Yeah, and so, and I do plan
to have a conversation with jennifer ritter this year because of those pilot payments
starting. Once those start in earnest and we're seeing $20 million a year,
then the pressure for a 3-12 agreement goes down
as far as the tax revenue side somewhat, but and it would be
really beneficial to our taxpayers because they would have a much lower rate and we'd
still be realizing some pretty significant income. So,
but having said that, they may still be important because unless something happens
at the legislature and to give us more local control, and we're going to try
to bring a bill through, I'm going to spend all day in austin friday trotting
around the capitol with one in my hand trying to get support.
but unless we get that local control, we're still going to have to get them into the das to get the things
we're getting. And so it's really hard to get somebody
to go down that da path without giving some concessions on appointments. It's almost
impossible. And we all know that. And so,
you know, so it's just, it's going to, this,
this is going to be one of the most critical legislative sessions that has happened
in this state in probably 100 years. And, you know,
so depending on what happens there, well, you know, it'll kind of direct
our course and we won't know that until may of '27, if we even know it then.
there may be special session after special session. So, and it does not look like there
will be any special session called prior to the start
of the regular session on data centers or,
anything else, you know. And they I got a lot of flack
for even bringing it up, but in our region, which is the austin msa, and we are part
of that there are two users that samsung uses 5.5 billion gallons
of water a year, and tesla uses
500 million gallons of water a year. We're holding
data centers to 20,000 a month, so that's 200, and if there's 10 of them, that's 2 million.
if there's 20 of them, that's 4 million. So compared to tesla and
samsung and what micron would have used might, when micron was looking here and we were
courting them and nobody protested micron, 7 million gallons a day was going
to be their water usage. And so and chip manufacturer is
not going to go away. I think data centers will get some guardrails put around them,
hopefully during this legislative session. But it will be around water usage and power usage and
transparency. I think that's going to be what you see is the
legislature is going
to tell them, you're going to have to tell us how much water you plan to use and how
much power you plan to use. And I honestly believe that's
all that's going to come from it. But that's better than nothing.
than what we have right now. So the last thing I had was to, I think make sure we're taking
into account the matches for these potential grants. We've got that safe streets
grant where we're going to be looking at maybe $1 million on a match. And so if
that, I think, can come out of a bond, our bond proceeds. Yes.
but, we'll need to make sure we're coordinated
on that. And then the 2720 project, that'll,
that'll have a match associated with it also. I know there's some money that we've collected
from private entities.
yeah, we have about $15 million coming from trac to help, but
that's dropping the bucket compared to that. Whole project,
but still it could help with our match a lot. So, and
then there it looks like likely that the moving project on 183 at magnolia, we might get a late funding
on that later this year. So could that be through campo? That's true,
campo. Okay, that's actual construction, and, so we'll have a match
associated with that. Okay, all right. And I think most all those matches can come
from the bond, but still we need to make sure we're, we're accounting for that
during the process. What else, commissioners? Anything?
okay, well, if not, we can
go ahead and have a motion to adjourn. I'll move
to adjourn. Motion to adjourn by commissioner westmoreland. Do
we have a second? Second. Second by commissioner horne.
any discussion? Not. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, we're adjourned at 10:28.