Lucio Vasquez / Houston Public Media
Forward of discussions Thursday on potential departmental service cuts in an effort to cut back prices, elected Harris County officers gave dueling outlooks on the county’s mounting funds deficit.
The deficit for the county’s 2025-26 fiscal 12 months was projected at $270 million earlier this 12 months after commissioners voted to extend deputy wages, practically doubling the funds shortfall. On Thursday, commissioners took up discussions on potential cost-saving measures.
Forward of the funds discussions, commissioners Adrian Garcia and Lesley Briones held a joint information convention clashing with Harris County Decide Lina Hidalgo’s personal press briefing. Every mentioned their very own projections in regards to the deficit.
Briones and Garcia mentioned they discovered methods to deliver the deficit right down to round $150 million with out the necessity to get rid of employees positions. As a substitute, their plan to stability the funds, which was echoed by county staffers later within the day, particularly targets round 1,300 vacant county positions throughout a number of departments, officers mentioned.
Hidalgo in the meantime offered a grim outlook on the deficit and confirmed paperwork a few projection nearer to $209 million. She mentioned the county possible will probably be pressured to make cuts to important division companies, difficult arguments that these prices may very well be balanced by merely discovering efficiencies within the funds. Hidalgo at a number of factors on Thursday took goal at Briones, Garcia and commissioner Tom Ramsey, a trio she labeled because the “GOP three.”
Talking in regards to the funds on Thursday morning, Briones mentioned “some would love [people] to consider that the sky is falling.”
“There will probably be devastating cuts on this dystopian universe,” she mentioned. “False. Quite the opposite, once more as a result of rolling up the sleeves and doing the laborious work, we’ve recognized key areas the place we are able to proceed delivering key precedence core county companies however doing it extra successfully and effectively.”
The dueling outlooks characterize a conflict between commissioners and Hidalgo in current weeks. It additionally comes days after they voted to censure Hidalgo following a tense dialogue about her proposed tax charge improve to fund youngster care applications. A chaotic commissioners court docket assembly final week prompted commissioners’ requires order to be restored throughout continued eruptions. In addition they voted final week to amend the court docket’s guidelines on decorum.
Hidalgo made a movement on Thursday that particularly challenged commissioners’ personal workplace budgets after she mentioned the three have been responsible for the rising deficit as a result of they appeared in assist of accelerating regulation enforcement raises. The proposal died after failing to get a second vote.
In a submit to X, she requested what the commissioners have been prepared to sacrifice from their very own places of work to make up for the county’s funds deficit.
“This deficit was preventable — we may have requested the voters what they needed to see… however you disadvantaged the folks of Harris County of their votes,” Hidalgo mentioned.
After voting to extend wages for sheriff’s and constable’s deputies in Might — following Houston Police Division’s accredited raises for its officers — commissioners on Thursday signaled that they’d additionally assist requested pay raises for Harris County’s eight elected constables to succeed in pay parity with HPD. Hidalgo mentioned she was not planning to assist these raises, which may doubtlessly inflate the constables’ yearly pay to be larger than that of Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.
Commissioners voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to direct the county workplace of administration and funds to submit notices for the pay will increase for constables on the Sept. 18 funds listening to agenda. Hidalgo and Ellis opposed the movement.
In a press briefing on Wednesday, county funds staffers mentioned they initially overshot on deficit estimates after the approval of boosted deputy wages earlier this 12 months was anticipated to price the county round $140 million. Finances director Daniel Ramos mentioned they discovered different methods to avoid wasting on prices, like reallocating American Rescue Plan Act funds.
