County budget includes pay hike

Denton County commissioners approved a budget Tuesday that will include employee raises.

Commissioners voted unanimously for the $202 million budget, which includes cuts in some areas and reorganization in others, but court members are pleased with the final version.

"It's always good to have that process over with," County Judge Mary Horn said. "It's a struggle and seems to get tougher every year."

Budget officials proposed the tax rate be set to the effective tax rate, the rate needed to raise the same amount of money as last year on the same property, of 27.7357 cents per $100 property valuation.

Last year's tax rate was 27.39 cents per $100 valuation.

With new taxable values added to the rolls this year, officials were able to pay for some growth in the budget.

In crafting the budget, which increased $5.2 million over last year, officials had to consider a host of changes - including reduced revenues, the continuing rise in health care costs, home foreclosures and state budget cuts. State funding for the county dropped by $732,000.

"We're not getting the grant funding to assist us [that] we received in prior years," Horn said. "One grant in particular, the DA [district attorney] family violence grant, was expected to be reduced; we didn't think it would be eliminated. That was a hit we weren't expecting."

Horn said commissioners were able to give employees 2 percent raises across the board, the first raise in two years.

To mitigate some budget issues, the court opted to eliminate five open positions and reorganized other positions, changing titles, job descriptions and funding in some cases.

Horn said she hopes the county will have enough funds and contingencies should any emergencies arise during the year.

"I appreciate [departments] being frugal with requests and working hard with less," she said. "We still have maintained a low tax rate, which makes us attractive as compared to surrounding counties."

BJ LEWIS can be reached at 940-566-6875. His e-mail address is blewis@dentonrc.com .