Smith County Commissioners Court approves 2024 budget, tax rate increase in 4-1 vote

TYLER, Texas (KLTV) - The Smith County Commissioners Court voted four to one Tuesday morning to pass the 2024 budget and a tax rate increase.

Pct. 3 Commissioner Terry Phillips was the only member of the court to vote against the budget and tax rate of .347264 cents per $100 valuation, an increase from the 2023 tax rate of 33 cents.

“In my opinion, this court made no attempt to lower the rollback rate in any manner. So, I just can’t support this,” Phillips said in court.

Following the meeting, Smith County Judge Neal Franklin defended the court’s efforts and told KLTV the county looked at all available options.

“I asked all the department heads to really sharpen their pencils and limits their asks, and we had to say no quite a bit,” Franklin said. “In a growing county like ours, the service expectations by the citizens increases. What do we do? Do we stay status quo? Or do we improve our services and continue to provide those great services that people expect in Smith County?”

Franklin said the tax rate increase was caused in large part by the courthouse and parking garage bond approved by voters in November 2022. The county’s approved budget addresses the new bond debt from the courthouse/parking garage project and includes several other areas of focus.

Among them is a five-percent cost-of-living increase in pay for all county employees, including elected officials.

“I thought it was very important that we keep those good employees that we have and make our salaries attractive to draw in new employees,” Franklin said.

The budget also eliminated compensatory time for Smith County jailers and calls for the return of overtime pay in an effort to mitigate the ongoing problem of retaining jailers.

“We’ve had a real struggle with detention officer retention. We can hire them, but we’ve had trouble over the last couple of years retaining detention officers. We felt like this is one of the pieces of the puzzle that will help address that retention problem.”

The new budget and tax rate will take effect Oct. 1, 2023.

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