Fayette County Commissioners Begin 2024 Budget Talks

Fayette County Commissioners held their first budget workshop of the year last Thursday, June 8.

Court Administrator Cassie Austin provided a rough timeline of this year’s budget proceedings. Austin said that every meeting from now until the budget is adopted will include a budget planning workshop.

According to state law, the County must file the proposed budget for next year at the County Clerk’s office by Aug. 15. A public hearing on the budget must take place no later than 25 days after the proposed budget is filed at the Clerk’s office. Commissioners tentatively plan to hold that hearing on Aug. 30 or 31.

The County will receive the certified taxable value from the Fayette County Appraisal District by the end of July. That number will determine revenue in next year’s budget. Commissioners plan to discuss the tax rate and possibly set a public hearing on the proposed rate in mid- to late-July. The public hearing on that tax rate will take place in September. The budget and tax rate must be approved by the end of September.

Each year the County contributes several thousand dollars to about a dozen nonprofit agencies such as the Children’s Advocacy Center, Combined CommunityAction and the Gardenia E. Janssen Animal Shelter. Those agencies will present their requests for funding at one of the next budget workshops. After that, Commissioners will hear funding requests from department heads.

“I will defer to you guys because y’all have been through this process longer,” County Judge Dan Mueller said the Commissioners. Mueller took office in January this year. “These (non-profit) entities, I would like for them to tell us what their plans are. As far as the department heads, unless they are seeking something really profound, I don’t know that it’s necessary for them to come in here and tell us what they are requesting.”

“We only ask the ones that have a substantial increase in their budget, we ask them to come in and present,” said County Auditor Cindy Havelka.

Plum resident William Bernsen asked when the public would be able to see the first draft of the budget.

“I’m a little concerned that it might come out at the end right before public hearings,” Bernsen said.

Havelka said she is still waiting on budget requests from some departments. She said EMS and the Sheriff’s Office will not present their requests until July.

“They want to look at six months of expenses to start making their budget,” Havelka said.

“I don’t like writing a $4 to $5 million budget based on three months of financial data,” said EMS Director Josh Vandever. “In my first budget year, it was April when diesel prices went through the roof.”

Pct. 1 Commissioner Jason McBroom said budget deadlines stipulated by state law pose challenges to the planning process.

“We approve our budget and nothing happens for three or four months until Jan. 1, so there’s a lot of lag time because we’re following deadlines,” McBroom said.

Also at Thursday’s meeting, Commissioners learned that health insurance costs for County employees will increase by about 8.7 percent next year, according to Orlando Espinoza, a representative from Texas Association of Counties (TAC), which provides health, vision and dental insurance for Fayette County Employees.

Espinoza spoke to Commissioners at a meeting last Thursday, June 8. Espinoza said TAC provides insurance to 231 counties and other entities in the State of Texas. TAC’s actuaries estimated a 6.2 percent increase in premium costs across their coverage pool, he said.

“Once we have that number, we look at each group individually and say, ‘How did you perform this year?’” Espinoza said. “Are we projecting you needing more money than the average or less? Groups that have very low loss ratios will get below that 6.2 percent. Groups that are higher will get above that amount. We look at other factors as well – your average age, the cost of care in your area, we look at high cost claims … We try to figure out how much money we have to collect from every group to average out to that 6.2 percent increase that we feel we need for this upcoming year.”

Espinoza said TAC assigned an 8.7 percent increase to Fayette County based on a number of factors.

“For you guys, 107 percent was where your loss ratio is sitting at – not where we want it to be,” Espinoza said. “Our target loss ratio is 94 percent – that means we’re breaking even. We build in six cents of every dollar to go toward admin fees and 94 cents of every dollar goes to actually paying your claims.”

TAC offers several wellness programs aimed at preventing health problems, which in turn reduce claims.

The 8.7 percent increase amounts to about $100,000, said Paula Vogel of the County Auditor’s Office.

“We have to make a decision about how to absorb that,” Vogel said. “Either the County absorbs it, or we share the increase partially by raising premiums for employees.”

Commissioners will vote on how to cover the cost at their meeting on June 22.