High fuel and material prices to impact next year’s budgets

  • Commissioners discussed the impact of general price increases on the FY 2022-2023 budget during last week's meeting at the DeWitt County Courthouse. Courtesy Photo
    Commissioners discussed the impact of general price increases on the FY 2022-2023 budget during last week's meeting at the DeWitt County Courthouse. Courtesy Photo

    As gasoline and asphalt prices continue to increase, the DeWitt County Commissioners’ Court may soon face the decision of cutting back on anticipated projects, raising the tax revenue or drawing from reserve funds to afford expenditures.

     

    With high material costs threatening to push several projects over budget, DeWitt County Judge Daryl Fowler explained that the price increases were a topic of discussion at last Thursday’s regular meeting. 

     

    “(Price increases) will play heavily in the construction of the law enforcement budget next year and the road and bridge budget next year. Those were our heaviest consumers of fuel – gasoline and diesel,” said Fowler in a follow-up interview June 10. “(Concerning) road building, (there has been) doubling or tripling of asphalt prices.”

     

    Fowler said he wanted to avoid cutting expenditures from the budget that would address necessary public safety needs and explained that the Texas House passed a bill in 2019 that set a 3.5% cap on the amount by which local jurisdictions can raise property taxes revenue annually without voter approval.

     

    “If we needed a 3.5% revenue increase to sustain other services going into the next year, we have that wiggle room with our tax rates – 3.5% revenue increase –, but if we feel like our budget requires more, we'd have to take that issue to the public,” Fowler said. “We have a substantial amount of reserve funds in our budget to end our fiscal year with a large cushion, so to speak.”

     

    While the reserve funds may contain enough to shoulder the expenses of the general price increases temporarily, the hiked costs would pose a more severe threat to the county's fiscal health if they persist for several years.

     

    The county judge added that the price increases also caused other areas of the budget to become more than their expected costs, including food prices at the county jail. Fowler said the jail’s menu would be inspected for opportunities to lower costs while maintaining nutritional requirements for the inmates.