CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Nueces County leaders finally got a chance to look at the numbers for the proposed $111M budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
It's a topic commissioners have had at the top of their minds as they continue to navigate the shortcoming caused by raised appraisal values from local industry.
In Wednesday's budget workshop, commissioners got the chance to look at the overall fund balance and get a general idea of where money could be allocated.
Nueces County Pct. 4 Commissioner Brent Chesney said that while no decisions were made Wednesday, there were a lot of ideas thrown around.
"We talked about giving employees a raise," he said.
According to Chesney, there were some unexpected surprises during the budget workshop.
"We got about $4 million in new growth, which is not new taxes, it's new growth, new shopping centers, new houses, abatements that fell off," he said. "We got quite a bit of new money I didn't anticipate us getting. Which is good because it gives us room to do some things."
On the other hand, Nueces County Judge Connie Scott said after adjusting for other expenses, it may not offer much of a cushion.
"Our health insurance has gown up 2.3 million, so in essence, we wont see any of that increase, it will just help us not have to dig even deeper into our reserve funds," she said.
Scott said the County has a lot of work to do to bolster it's financial situation.
"The County only works off property tax revenues and unfortunately, our number needs to be a little bit higher than the 24," she said.
Scott said that compared to past years, the County is lagging behind.
"State of the County showed 30 is really where we have pretty much always stayed around for the last 15, 20 years," she said.