Walker County Commissioners Court held an extended budget workshop Aug. 11 that culminated in filing the proposed fiscal year 2025-26 budget with specified changes, setting required public hearings and approving a modest EMS recruitment/retention allocation.
The court recorded receipt of certified property values from the appraisal district (packet materials), and staff presented the calculated "no-new-revenue" tax rate (0.4371) and the debt rate (0.0184), producing a voter-approval rate of 0.4887 per $100 assessed value. During the workshop the court voted to include a proposed combined tax rate of 0.4571 per $100 (operations 0.4387 + debt 0.0184) in the required public notices and set the public hearing on the proposed tax rate for Aug. 25 at 9:05 a.m. at the Walker County Courthouse.
On the budget itself, the court filed the proposed budget as presented with three explicit modifications agreed in the workshop: (1) modify EMS pay-scale placement to reflect EMT/paramedic midpoint adjustments; (2) adopt an EMS paramedic retention/recruitment alternative that funds a two-tier paramedic pay structure enabling up to seven positions to be paid at a higher step (an incremental $2 per hour for the designated "paramedic 2" tier) using funds already within the consensus budget (a figure cited as $56,016 to cover the proposed differential); and (3) set aside $213,128 into a new long-range planning/capital projects account and reserve $100,000 in the budget for planning and development (used to recruit or contract an engineer/program coordinator and to begin long-range planning work). Court members stated the $100,000 allocation will be made available for planning/engineering recruitment or a part-time/contract engineering resource to reduce outside-contract review time.
County officials discussed EMS staffing shortages: the county has multiple vacant paramedic positions and several employees out on injury leave; commissioners described alternative personnel/scheduling models and asked staff to return with options for long-term staffing and scheduling changes (including possible four-shift models to reduce overtime). County staff and EMS leadership (Rachel, EMS chief) participated in the discussion and provided pay-grade and vacancy detail. The court directed administration to proceed with administrative plan reviews (planning department reviews of Topstar/Waverly Place plans, distinct from this budget action) while certain access/TxDOT questions are resolved.
The court approved motions to file the proposed budget with the stated amendments, and to schedule the Aug. 25 public hearings for both the budget and the tax rate. The file reflects votes recorded as carried on those motions; the minutes do not show split recorded tallies in open session. The court agreed to return to workshop or reconvene if TxDOT outcomes required follow-up on subdivisions and access items that overlapped the budget conversation.