{"id":1432322,"date":"2025-08-05T18:32:04","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T23:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1432322"},"modified":"2025-08-08T03:09:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T08:09:06","slug":"commissioners-discuss-tax-rate-set-budget-workshop-and-public-hearings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1432322","title":{"rendered":"Commissioners discuss tax rate, set budget workshop and public hearings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-1432323\" src=\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/08\/Smit-County-seal-200x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/08\/Smit-County-seal-200x200.jpg 200w, https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/08\/Smit-County-seal.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/>SMITH COUNTY &#8212; The Smith County Commissioners Court has set a special-called meeting for 10 a.m. Friday, August 8, to discuss the Fiscal Year 2026 budget. At Tuesday\u2019s regular meeting, the court discussed the proposed tax rate and scheduled public hearings.\u00a0They took a record vote to set the proposed tax rate, unanimously voting to keep it the same as last year, which is 0.364231 cents. The public hearings on the proposed tax rate are set for 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, September 2.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t want to increase that tax rate. We have a lot of residents in the same fix as our employees,\u201d County Judge Neal Franklin said, referring to higher cost of living prices on groceries, etc.\u00a0He said county departments have been working to cut costs where they can. Franklin said he would still like to see a 3 percent cost of living raise for county employees this year.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Franklin said earlier that the budget\u2019s primary areas of focus this year will include cost of living raises for employees, the rising costs of health insurance, Texas Association of Counties\u2019 insurance rate increases, inmate medical and food costs in the jail going up and raising the county court-at-law and district judges\u2019 salaries imposed by the Texas Legislature.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of requests this year for full-time employees and new vehicles and equipment\u2026 But we have several things we must do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To watch any of the Commissioners Court meetings, including budget workshops, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smith-county.com\/i-want-to\/search\/commissioners-court-records\">click here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>To view the agenda for Friday\u2019s meeting, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smith-county.com\/i-want-to\/view\/commissioners-court-agendas\">click here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SMITH COUNTY &#8212; The Smith County Commissioners Court has set a special-called meeting for 10 a.m. Friday, August 8, to discuss the Fiscal Year 2026 budget. At Tuesday\u2019s regular meeting, the court discussed the proposed tax rate and scheduled public hearings.\u00a0They took a record vote to set the proposed tax rate, unanimously voting to keep &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1432322\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Commissioners discuss tax rate, set budget workshop and public hearings<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":1432730,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/08\/Smit-County-seal-200x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1432322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 22:06:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/08\/Smit-County-seal-200x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1432322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1432322"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1432322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1432923,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1432322\/revisions\/1432923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1432730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1432322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1432322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1432322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}