COLDSPRING — The San Jacinto County Commissioners Court backtracked on a plan to increase all employee’s salaries by $4,000 after realizing that it initially informed the public that raises would be less.
At a Sept. 9 meeting, the county approved a budget with tax revenues of just more than $16 million at a tax rate of 0.46511, or 46.511 cents per $100 of property valuation. That is down from last year’s rate of 0.48291, or 48.291 cents per $100 of property valuation.
Ensconced in that budget was a $4,000 raise for staff and elected officials; however, the county had publicly posted salaries reflecting only a $2,000, which after investigation, caused the change.
Being as how the county is in good financial shape, County Judge Fritz Faulkner said that at the Sept. 9 budget hearing, the court found it could approve a $4,000 raise for every full-time employee, which has never happened as far as he knew.
Faulkner said he did vote for the measure, but said “I don’t think this will pass muster” since the county originally advertised pay scales with $2,000 raises.
“After consulting with the District Attorney and the County Auditor, we haven’t passed the smell test to give a raise that exceeds what was advertised to the public,” he said.
The budget was modified and will be filed with only the $2,000 raise. Additionally, the budget reflects a $2 per hour raise for part-time employees.
Faulkner said that the raise should help those departments seeing high turnover rates.
County resident Gerald Deeter said he approved of the move, but also questioned whether any raises were justified given the inflationary times.
In other business, the court:
