Hempstead, Texas – On August 21, 2022, the Waller County Commissioners Court voted unanimously to propose a 2025 county tax rate at the “no new revenue” rate. The Texas Comptroller’s office defines a “no new revenue” rate as a tax rate that would produce the same amount of tax revenue in the current year as was generated from the same existing properties in the prior year. According to Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, adopting a “no new revenue rate,” especially “In a year with sky-high appraisals, this should result in a significantly lower rate to offset the increased revenue caused by inflated home appraisals.”

The proposed rate of $.496021 per $100 represents a 5.14% decrease from the 2024 county rate which was $.522943, a reduction of $.026922. This was made possible by budget cuts made during the 2025 county budget process, said county officials.

“I think this extremely important to highlight that if adopted, this is the 3rd ‘no new revenue’ budget and tax rate passed by the County in the last five years, which shows that we are committed to reducing the property tax burden on our citizens as much as possible while continuing to deal with inflation and growth to the greatest extent possible by effectively using new revenue from newly added properties to help meet the increasing demand for county services,” said County Judge Trey Duhon.

Duhon added, “When I began as County Judge in 2015, our prior tax rate was $.68 per $100. With this latest tax rate cut, we have cut the county tax rate over 27% over the last 10 years, especially considering that Waller County continues to be one of the fastest growing counties in the state of Texas, which places a huge strain on the county to provide services.”

The 2025 County Budget that Duhon has proposed includes an additional $1.28 million for 16 new county employees, most of which will be administrative, but also includes four new patrol deputies and two investigators in the Sheriff’s Department, an additional juvenile probation officer, a new permit manager at Road & Bridge, and a procurement position. The proposed budget also includes an additional $1.34 million for implementation of the second phase of the county salary study and a 3% cost of living adjustment for county employees, and a $1 million increase in capital outlay for projects slated to be completed in 2025, including a maintenance facility for sheriff vehicles, design work on new Precinct 2 and Precinct 3 buildings, a new county fuel depot, and the addition of new buildings at the Justice Center for expansion of county departments such as environmental, the District Attorney, the District Clerk’s office and County Court at Law No. 2.

This proposed budget also absorbs the remaining costs ($930,000.00) of the employees the County added with American Rescue Plan Funds, mostly in court-related staff to deal with the backlog of cases from COVID.

“The addition of the new County Court-at-Law No. 2 last year has also made a significant dent in backlogged cases – having resolved the backlog of civil cases by 79% and will now be focused on reducing the backlog of felony criminal cases in 2025,” said Duhon.

This budget also allocates an additional $275,000.00 for additional indigent defense attorneys as well, which Duhon called “an ongoing unfunded mandate” since the state does not provide all of the funding needed to provide defense attorneys to the roughly 74% of defendants who are charged with a felony that request court-appointed attorneys.

The 2025 proposed budget also contains an additional $1 million for Waller County Road & Bridge, with an increase of $250,000.00 for bridge replacements, $500,000.00 for professional consulting, and $250,000.00 for additional road contract work.

A public hearing will be held on the 2025 County Budget on Wednesday, September 18, 2024, at the Joe Kuciemba Annex at 425 FM 1488 in Hempstead during the regularly scheduled meeting of Waller County Commissioners Court.