Danny Scheel

After three days of budget hearings with 33 department heads, Comal County Commissioners are looking at a proposed budget of $48.4 million for fiscal year 2008-09, or a little less than 10 percent above this last year’s $44.2 million budget.

The proposed budget includes a request by Comal County Sheriff Bob Holder for a 12.6 percent increase in his department’s total budget.

“We are challenged by the increase of petroleum products,” said Commissioner Pct. 2 Jay Millikin. “It has become a higher part of our budget. We have already had three amendments to this year’s budget to allow more funds for petroleum. We have a lot of vehicles on the road everyday and along with the increase in the cost of materials to maintain those roads, our cost has increased significantly.”

Millikin said county’s ITT department requested a 40 percent increase in it’s budget.

“I am not as big a supportive of that as some of the commissioners because I’m not a fan of all the latest innovations in technology,” Millikin said. “Sheriff Holder has asked for a large increase in his budget to include raises of 16 percent for deputies and jailers. I suspect he will get about one third of that in the final analysis.”

Comal County Judge Danny Scheel said the proposed budget will provide for equal salary increases for all county employees.

“The commissioners will have the final say,” he said.

Comal County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Gregg Van-de-loo said the sheriff’s department was asking for a 16-percent salary increase for deputies and jailers and an 8-percent increase for dispatchers.

“It costs the county $95,000 to hire and train a new deputy,” he said. “It is far more cost effective to retain our officers than to hire new people. We are losing our officers to other area departments because we cannot offer competitive wages.

The requested budget for our department for 2008-09 is 13 percent over last year; however, it is around 3 percent less than the 2007 budget request. We need to add seven jailers in order to meet state guidelines and that, along with the increase in gasoline, substantially increases operating costs. We need to keep our officers on the road and maintain visibility in the county.”

The tax rate will be set in September. The current county tax rate is $0.3179 per $100 valuation.