POSTED: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 - 6:30pm
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 - 6:44pm
Longview, TX — Gregg County Judge Bill Stoudt will deliver a proposed budget for 2012-13 to commissioners next week that continues major outlays for infrastructure while coming in $1 million slimmer than this year’s spending plan.
“This budget is looking fairly good,” Stoudt said of the proposal he’ll unveil for the commissioners court this coming Monday. “Our expenses, right now, are about a million less in operating (budget) than they were a year ago. The big projects this year will be in the capital programs.”
At $45.4 million, the proposal is $1,040,000 smaller than this year’s budget, which expires Sept. 30.
Stoudt is proposing the tax rate remain just less than 26 cents per $100 valuation, at 0.2565, a decision that won’t be finalized until estimated property values are certified later this week.
Commissioners will get a final say once budget workshops begin next week, but their own road and bridge budgets are about $100,000 smaller in Stoudt’s plan.
About $9 million is earmarked separately, under a capital improvements budget, for road upgrades in partnership with the Texas Department of Transportation and the cities of Kilgore or Longview and their economic development corporations.
Those include a $5 million county commitment to widening and extending George Richey Road into an east-west corridor in northern Gregg County. Widening and improving safety features on Texas 42 from Interstate 20 south to Kilgore will require $1.3 million from the county, creating a turn lane off the Kilgore bypass into Synergy Park another $150,000.