Projected prison costs remain high as Hidalgo County mulls budget

HDuring a workshop on Tuesday, Idalgo County officials got their first look at the proposed budget for fiscal year 2025.

Key items announced during the work session include a proposed 5 percent wage increase to cover cost of living for all county employees, several new job openings and a slight increase in property tax revenue compared to last year.

Perhaps the most striking detail that emerged during the 15-minute discussion, however, is that the cost of housing Hidalgo County's jail population will continue to rise rapidly, even after authorities began transferring dozens of inmates to the newly opened Willacy County Jail late last month.

ESTIMATED PRISON COSTS

Dagoberto Soto, the county's budget and administration director, began his presentation on prison costs by saying he expected cost savings of $2 million by housing local inmates in out-of-county prisons.

Almost since the day it opened in 2003, the Hidalgo County Adult Detention Center has reached or exceeded its maximum capacity of approximately 1,200 inmates.

In recent years, this overcrowding problem has prompted stern warnings from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, and so the county entered into a series of agreements to house some of its inmates in other prisons throughout South Texas.

But housing hundreds of inmates in jails in Brooks, Starr and Jim Hogg counties cost the county Million per year.

For the 2024 fiscal year, Hidalgo County has budgeted $7 million to cover these costs for lodging and meals from outside the county, Soto said during Tuesday's workshop.

But when county leaders began compiling their budget wish lists earlier this summer, it appeared that the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Department would request 71% additional funding for fiscal year 2025, which begins Jan. 1, 2025.

The sheriff's office originally planned to seek $12 million from outside the county next year to cover those costs, Soto said.

However, in recent discussions between the Sheriff's Office and the Budget Department, that amount was reduced from $7 million budgeted for 2024 to just $5 million for 2025.

This decline is largely due to the fact that Willacy Prison opens on July 26th.

“With the Willacy County Jail operational and … receiving inmates from the county, these costs should decrease,” Soto said.

“We want to take a common sense approach and reduce (projected costs) by $2 million, which will save $2 million on room and board costs,” he added.

This, however, raised questions from commissioners who wanted to know how much more the sheriff's office was charging for inmates from other counties.

Soto confirmed that this item will be $5 million in the current budget proposal.

He said the original $12 million request was made before the Willacy prison opened and therefore represented a “worst-case scenario.”

THE WILLACY FACTOR

Still, Hidalgo County Judge Richard F. Cortez wondered about the high costs now that the facility is housing inmates from Hidalgo.

“Is that (number) now consistent with what they (the Sheriff's Office) requested based on their last communication with you?” Cortez Soto asked of the revised $5 million funding request.

“Yeah, right. Yes,” Soto replied.

Second District Commissioner Eduardo “Eddie” Cantu seemed stunned by this response and asked the budget director how much the district currently spends on housing inmates at the Willacy Jail.

“We’re talking about… $19 million,” Soto replied.

This is because Hidalgo County is in a 50-year lease of Willacy Prison – a lease that began in November 2022 at a cost of $3 million per year.

Additionally, in April 2023, the county hired LaSalle Corrections, a for-profit Louisiana prison company, as an outside administrator to oversee the day-to-day operations of the rural prison.

Hidalgo County agreed to pay LaSalle $13.9 million in the first year, even though the prison was not inhabitable in 2023 and therefore sat vacant that year.

According to the contract, which was signed on April 1 of this year, the county was to pay LaSalle $14.5 million. That price will increase by about $500,000 annually over the eight-year term of the contract.

Meanwhile, it took more than a year and required paying another $2 million to La Feria-based construction company Noble Texas Builders to renovate the once-abandoned prison – a task Noble completed in June.

In addition, the county has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on other costs that were not part of the contract with Noble, including over $426,000 for a new HVAC system, which the county approved the same day as the budget workshop.

WHERE ARE THE PRISONERS?

It seemed as if these numbers were on the commissioners' minds when they questioned Soto on Tuesday about the proposed prison costs.

“I mean, we have $19 million in new spending and we're still close to $7 million,” Cantu said, referring to the cost of the Willacy prison or the 2024 budget for housing inmates from other counties.

Cantu also wondered how many inmates Willacy Prison can accommodate and how many will need to be housed elsewhere.

“There are still people out there,” Judge Cortez said.

According to press releases from the sheriff's office, the Willacy jail has a capacity of 450 inmates.

However, data obtained by the Texas Prison Commission in response to a Texas Public Information Act request shows that the number of out-of-county inmates has remained at or near that number for years.

The Prison Commission recently removed inmate census data from prisons across the state since 2022 from its website, citing its inability to verify self-reported numbers. However, those numbers remain publicly available through a public information request.

These figures show that as of July 1, Hidalgo County had 437 inmates housed in other prisons.

The lowest census outside the county was conducted last September, when about 335 inmates were housed elsewhere.

But as of September 2022, the earliest point in this dataset, Hidalgo County had 453 inmates housed in other prisons—a number just above Willacy Prison's capacity.

Ultimately, Soto said, there is still time to discuss the finer details of allocating funds for inmate housing before the county must approve the budget at the end of next month.

OTHER BUDGET ITEMS

In other numbers Soto presented Tuesday, the county is expected to see a slight 6% increase in revenue thanks to higher property valuations.

It is the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020 that property valuations have not increased by double digits.

“We seem to be stabilizing and are projecting a 6% increase in property tax revenue, which equates to about $15 million in additional revenue,” if the county maintains the same tax rate of 57.5 cents per $100 of value, Soto said.

In 2024, assessments increased by more than 15%, resulting in more than $34 million in additional revenue compared to the previous year, according to a copy of Hidalgo County's 2024 budget.

Still, Soto estimates that this year's more modest growth rate will be enough for the county to add $9 million to its reserve in 2025.

And while revenues appear to be declining, expenses continue to rise.

According to figures from Tuesday's budget summary, county spending is expected to increase by nearly $25 million, or about 8.4 percent.

Some of those additional expenses will come from a proposal to give county employees a 5 percent cost-of-living increase that will cost about $7.3 million, as well as a so-called “pay plan” from the Hidalgo County District Attorney's Office worth $1.4 million, Soto said.

The requests to create about 35 new positions across the county and to implement staff adjustments or wage increases would cost about $2.4 million to fully fund, Soto said.

The next budget workshop is provisionally planned for September 17.