Comal County presents $162.5 million 2026 budget request; public safety, courts and equipment drive increases

Comal County Commissioners Court on Wednesday reviewed department-level requests for the county's 2026 budget, which total about $162,500,000 in department submissions. Presenters said public safety, corrections and the justice system account for more than half of the county’s spending and drove a number of personnel and equipment requests across departments.

The county’s budget packet shows the 2026 departmental request totalled roughly $162.5 million, with capital and noncapital equipment requests just over $12 million. County staff emphasized that the figure uses some 2025 salary baselines and will change as salary assumptions are finalized.

The budget presentations highlighted several recurring themes: more staffing for courts and the district clerk’s office to handle rising caseloads and jury demands; large equipment and radio-replacement requests from the sheriff’s office; information-technology proposals to expand storage and cybersecurity training; road-and-bridge plans to increase overlay mileage; and park and recycling projects tied to growth.

Justice courts and court support

Multiple elected judicial officers and court administrators told commissioners workload has grown substantially. Justice of the peace offices jointly requested a pay increase and cited a near-doubling of filings from 2020 to 2024. Justice of the Peace Judge Walker said case filings rose “from 7,343 in 2020 to over 14,570 in 2024,” and that civil filings rose from about 1,867 to 3,364 in the same period; mid‑2025 filings were reported as approximately 1,680 civil and 5,520 criminal cases. The four JP offices asked the court to raise the base salary from $91,561 to $110,000 to bring pay nearer regional benchmarks.

District Clerk Miss Keller asked for two additional positions to handle increased jury and case-processing workloads and said juries were up about 6% over the prior year. Keller also included a $1,500 annual subscription request for an electronic-notice system, eCourtDate, which the county could use for jury and other notifications; she tied that request to a recent Supreme Court order requiring electronic notice options for courts.

County court clerks and court administrators sought reclassifications and overtime pay changes. County Court at Law Clerk Miss Gonzales requested reclassifying several clerks and asked the commissioners to consider a monthly bilingual pay differential to compensate employees who routinely interpret for non-English-speaking residents. Presenters said bilingual duties are common across courts, the tax office and public health and that about a quarter of county residents are Hispanic.

Criminal justice and the jail

Criminal District Attorney Jennifer Stark presented statistics showing growing felony filings and jury-trial demand. Stark said the office filed roughly 1,400 felony cases in 2024 — a 54% increase — and requested two paralegal positions and two intake clerks to reduce attorney time spent tracking down missing evidence and digital files from law enforcement submissions. Stark also described a jail-based competency restoration program and noted long state wait times: one person waited 525 days for transfer to a state facility.

The sheriff’s office requested equipment and personnel targeted at communications and patrol readiness. The sheriff said radio-console replacements for the communications center are estimated at about $1,091,000, and presented options to purchase outright or finance over multiple years. The sheriff also asked for five replacement patrol vehicles, expanded APX radio replacements (to APX/NEXT radio models with improved building connectivity), 100 cell phones for deputies to perform ticketing and documentation, and replacement body armor and SWAT equipment. On the jail side, staff requested four additional corrections officers; presenters said the jail was operating with roughly 100 available beds at the time of the workshop and that medical costs remain a major recurring expense.

Information technology and cybersecurity

IT Director Lana Peace outlined proposals to replace servers and expand data backup capacity, requested $75,000 for backup‑capacity software, and proposed switching to a more comprehensive cybersecurity and artificial‑intelligence training platform; she listed a $20,000 line for the new training platform and $75,000 for backup software. Peace also asked to add an enterprise application support manager position to handle increasing application support and a 69% increase in support tickets since February 2023.

Roads, flood control and maintenance

Road and Bridge presenters described an ambition to expand annual asphalt overlay from about 60 miles toward 70–80 miles in coming years; the department requested a $175,000 increase in road construction funding for 2026 and capital equipment replacements. Flood-control staff described planning for upgrades to an FRS-designated dam (FRS Dam Number 4) with an estimated total project cost shown in the presentation as about $12,000,007 and a local responsibility in the range of $4,000,000; county staff said that local share could be covered by a state set‑aside if those funds are available, but otherwise the county would need to have the cash on hand should federal construction proceed.

Parks, purchasing and recycling

Parks staff requested roughly $818,100 for property improvements, including replacement HVAC units at the CRC building and funding to advance tennis-court work. The parks request included options for the Spring Branch Tennis Association ranging from two unlit courts to four lit courts; the four‑court, lighted option was estimated at $1,260,000 in the materials, and staff flagged staged options to make funding more attainable.

Purchasing asked for an RFID-enabled inventory-tracking system and maintenance support for the county’s source-of-contract software; the ongoing maintenance line in the purchasing presentation was listed near $49,000. Recycling staff requested a cellular iPad to accept payments and monitor mulch temperatures, three replacement cameras, and one new recycling operator position to handle high daily volumes — presenters said the facility receives roughly 3,000 pounds of cardboard per day on average.

Next steps

Presenters repeatedly noted that submitted totals use some 2025 salary figures and would be affected by final salary decisions. Commissioners did not vote on budget totals at the workshop; the session was a departmental hearing and staff said items will be folded into the recommended 2026 budget later in the process. Some large items described by department heads — notably the dam work and major radio-console purchases — depend on external funding decisions or will require commissioners to decide between lump-sum purchases and multiyear financing.

The court recessed at the end of the workshop; staff said follow-up information (detailed cost breakdowns, vehicle mileages, and other supporting spreadsheets) would be provided on request or in subsequent budget materials.