Each of three Bell County Court-at-Law judges will receive a $29,400 pay hike beginning Oct. 1, if the budget is approved by Commissioners Court on Aug. 27.
The hefty pay hike for the judges would come entirely from $75,000 in state funding mandated in Senate Bill 600 passed during the last session of the Texas Leg-islature. The state contribution would reduce the amount paid by Bell County taxpayers for each judge by $17,600.
“We’re the beneficiary of the Legislature trying to bring county courts at law, statewide, up to a level just below district courts because we’re doing the same business and hearing the same (kinds of) cases as district courts,” said Bell County Court-at-Law No. 3 Judge Gerald Brown. “It was an effort to get salary parity across the state.”
Deon Daugherty Allen, communication director for Sen. Robert Duncan, R-District 28, author of SB 600, said, “We’re having the county court-at-law judges perform more state business, like family court and misdemeanors.”
The state also upped its contribution toward the county attorney’s salary, from $49,340 to $56,414. The increased state funding allows commissioners to raise the county attorney’s pay from $128,750 to $139,000. Bell County taxpayers would pick up just over $3,000 of the proposed increase.
County Judge Jon Burrows, who would receive a 4 percent raise along with most other county officials, didn’t mince any words about the raises proposed for county courts-at-law judges and the county attorney. “It’s the law that we take the state money in SB 600. We really don’t have any choice, it’s state law … signed by the governor in 2007 and funded by new court costs.” Burrows said.
“Bell County, based on our population, is financially conservative,” emphasized Judge Burrows. Burrows read from Texas State Data Center reports that showed the population of Bell County ranked 17th among Texas counties. “But our current budget is ranked 23rd,” Burrows said.
He said Bell County commissioners made $57,548 last year while commissioners made $77,329 in Williamson County and $87,434 in McLennan.
Bell County resident Steve Kirkham, who has questioned the raises, said, “It would have made a difference, when they put the public notice in (the Telegram), if they would have fully explained things so people would have known Bell County wasn’t getting saddled with all the expense.”
Eddy Lange, county commissioner in Precinct 3, said more county employees deserved more money.
“We would actually like to see all our employees get a 10 percent raise, but that would not be financially responsible,” he said.
“We were fortunate (in the proposed budget) that we were able to give most of our employees a 4 percent raise,” said Lange. He said during the past two years county employees had received 3 percent raises. “During one of the last five years we were able to only give a 2 percent raise,” Lange added.
Dramatic tax revenue increases during 2007 gave commissioners more to work, according to Marvin Hahn, chief appraiser with the Tax Appraisal District of Bell County.
“We picked up about $650 million in new construction that went on the tax rolls in 2007 plus re-appraisals of existing properties added something over $500 million. So there was over a billion dollars in increased property values, or 10 percent increase, across the county,” Hahn said.
sshafferx@temple-telegram.com
