Harris County’s Office of Management and Budget has recently unveiled its proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year. This endeavor aims to recover from the setbacks experienced the previous year, where a contentious dispute led the county to adopt an austerity budget with no increase in tax rates.
The General Fund’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2024 amounts to $2.395 billion. According to Budget Director Daniel Ramos, this represents an increase of approximately $267 million compared to the previous year’s adopted budget.
A significant portion of this increase comprises additional allocations for the Harris County Jail and Harris County District Attorney’s Office, both of which have been made since last fall.
“The county is bearing the costs that we had initially planned and included in the Fiscal Year ’23 budget, which we are now incorporating into the Fiscal Year ’24,” explained Ramos.
Last year, Republican County Commissioners Jack Cagle and Tom Ramsey staged a nearly two-month boycott of Commissioners Court meetings, denying Democratic members the necessary quorum to pass their desired tax rates. Cagle subsequently lost his reelection bid, giving Democrats a supermajority on the court and making a repeat of last year’s budget battle unlikely.
One of the catalysts for the dispute was the allegation made by Cagle and Ramsey that Democratic members had reduced funding for law enforcement. Justice and safety would account for nearly two-thirds of the proposed FY ’24 budget, totaling $1.518 billion.
The budget will also allocate approximately $57 million for cost of living increases for county employees. Ramos clarified that county wages have fallen behind compared to neighboring jurisdictions in recent years.
“During that three-and-a-half fiscal years,” Ramos stated, “civilian employees’ salaries only experienced a 2.2% rise, whereas other jurisdictions provided a 5% increase in a single year within the same period.”
Ramos is scheduled to present the budget proposal to Harris County commissioners on August 22 for discussion, while the commissioners are expected to cast their vote on the budget on September 19. The Fiscal Year ’24 begins on October 1, 2023, and concludes on September 30, 2024.
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