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…