Bexar County commissioners are weighing millions of dollars in new and continued spending across the local criminal justice system, from staffing the county jail to keeping temporary family violence courts open and preserving an indigent defense program as its state funding dries up.
The requests come as county officials build the fiscal year 2026-27 budget under tighter financial constraints than in recent years, forcing commissioners to decide not only what new public safety investments to make, but which programs created with temporary or grant funding should become permanent county expenses.
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office alone requested about $13 million to create new deputy positions and reclassify others. County court judges are asking commissioners to extend two temporary courts created to work through a backlog of family violence cases, while officials overseeing indigent defense are seeking nearly $1.9 million to preserve positions previously supported by a state grant.
Commissioners are considering these proposals among others before they adopt a final county budget in September.
Bexar County Sheriff’s Office has nearly 200 vacant positions
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office submitted one of the largest requests for additional spending, seeking about $15 million in program changes as the department struggles to fill existing positions.
That includes a $12.8 million request to create 128 new positions in the department and reclassify 26 others. Budget officials told commissioners they did not recommend approval of the request and did not include it in the proposed budget.
Instead, county officials recommend maintaining staffing resources already authorized while keeping some of that money in reserve until the sheriff’s office can fill more of its existing vacancies.
That includes funding for 50 detention officers and 10 detention corporals commissioners previously placed in contingency. The positions were meant to be released once the sheriff’s office substantially reduced its vacancies, but Budget and Finance Director Tanya Gaitan said the department still had about 192 vacancies as of last weekend before the budget presentation.
“They still have some work to do,” Gaitan told commissioners, saying the county wanted to preserve the funding in case the sheriff’s office is able to fill the positions.
Budget officials also recommended setting aside $11.2 million in contingency funding for detention overtime as the jail continues operating with staffing vacancies.
Eight sheriff’s officer positions associated with the county’s mental health response program, known as SMART, would also be preserved as federal pandemic relief funding expires, at a cost of about $806,000.
Unlike most county positions supported with expiring post-ARPA funding, Gaitan said the SMART positions would remain in the sheriff’s office budget because state law restricts the county from reducing law enforcement funding.
Body cameras, Tasers and vehicles
Even as administrators recommend against most new spending, the proposed budget includes several major capital expenses that officials say cannot be deferred.
The proposal includes $6.7 million for a new body camera and Taser contract as well as about $6.2 million to replace county vehicles.
Gaitan said the vehicle replacements were vetted through the county’s Fleet Maintenance Department and Vehicle Replacement Committee and described them as necessary and mostly used by law enforcement officers.
Precinct 4 Commissioner Tommy Calvert asked budget officials to closely examine the proposed body camera and Taser spending, questioning whether replacement provisions in the county’s existing contract could offset some of the cost and whether the proposed replacement schedule reflects the equipment’s actual useful life.
“It seems to me like they’re basically being replaced every two years,” Calvert said. “Is that a good clip or is that just because the company likes that timeline? We need some clarity before such major expenditures are made on that technology.”
Grant ends for indigent defense program
Commissioners also weigh whether to absorb the cost of an indigent defense program that oversees the vast majority of private court-appointed attorneys in the county.
The Managed Assigned Counsel program, or MAC, was created in 2021 with funding from the Texas Indigent Defense Commission after reviews identified deficiencies in Bexar County’s indigent defense system.
Rather than directly representing defendants, MAC administers the system through which private attorneys are appointed to people who cannot afford lawyers, while providing oversight, training and support.
Executive Director Jim Bethke said the office now oversees 237 private attorneys and handles about 94% of the more than 32,000 court-appointed cases moving through the system.
MAC is seeking about $1.9 million to maintain 16 positions after funding tied to its state grant ends. The county has funded the office through Dec. 31, with money for the remaining nine months of the fiscal year placed in contingency while commissioners decide whether to make the program an ongoing county expense.
The four-year grant was structured so Bexar County assumed a greater share of the program’s cost over time. County officials said the county contributed about $3.3 million of the roughly $6.7 million spent on the program during the grant period.
That does not include more than $10 million the county spends annually paying the private attorneys themselves, an expense County Manager David Smith said would continue even without the MAC office.
MAC officials argued the additional investment provides oversight that did not previously exist at the same level. The office reviews attorney vouchers, monitors caseloads, handles complaints and provides training and legal assistance to appointed lawyers.
But commissioners wrestled with how that system fits alongside the county’s Public Defender’s Office, which approaches the same constitutional obligation from a different direction.
While MAC manages the private attorneys appointed to most defendants who cannot afford a lawyer, the Public Defender’s Office employs its own attorneys, investigators, social workers and other staff to directly represent a much smaller share of those defendants.
Public defenders argued their role also extends beyond the cases formally assigned to the office. Its attorneys represent people at initial court appearances, staffs specialty courts, assists appointed attorneys on complex cases and takes on other legal work that might otherwise require the county to pay a private attorney.
The office pointed to hundreds of writs it has filed on behalf of people held in the Bexar County jail solely on warrants from other jurisdictions, for example. Public defenders said that work helps move those inmates out of the county jail and reduce overcrowding but does not count toward the office’s traditional caseload.
Those additional responsibilities also complicate attempts to compare the two indigent defense systems.
Precinct 3 Commissioner Grant Moody asked county staff to develop a comparison that was more apple to apples, saying commissioners need to understand both the cost of each model and whether responsibilities could be better aligned.
Moody also questioned whether defendants could receive different levels of representation depending on which system provides their attorney.
“I think … we need to think about the service provided for indigent defense under MAC versus PDO and making sure that … there’s not a premium service and a general service,” Moody said.
District Court Judge Ron Rangel, who helped establish MAC, described the programs as complementary rather than competing approaches to indigent defense. Several commissioners expressed support for continuing both.
Family violence courts face uncertain future
In Bexar County’s court system, judges are asking commissioners to keep two family violence impact courts operating for another nine months after federal pandemic relief funding expires.
The courts were authorized in late 2021, to address a backlog where more than 6,300 family violence cases were pending. They operate alongside County Courts at Law 7 and 13, the county’s two permanent courts designated to primarily handle family violence cases.
Continuing the impact courts and associated positions in the District Attorney’s Office, County Clerk and other departments would cost about $1.9 million annually.
The proposed budget funds those positions through Dec. 31 and places funding for the remaining nine months in contingency. Budget officials, however, recommend ultimately allowing the temporary courts to expire.
Gaitan pointed to a county-commissioned analysis of programs supported with expiring pandemic relief funding and data showing the backlog has fallen to about 4,500 cases, or roughly 2,300 cases per permanent family violence court — a level she said is comparable to other criminal county courts.
The two family violence courts have also received fewer new filed cases than most other criminal courts this fiscal year. Gaitan said cases could again be distributed among the county’s other criminal courts, as they were before the impact courts were created.
That includes roughly 1,100 family violence cases awaiting charging decisions from the DA’s Office, as of the end of June. If all were filed and divided among the county’s criminal courts, budget officials estimate each would receive about 88 additional cases.
Judges pushed back, arguing the lower caseloads do not necessarily mean the demand that led the county to create the impact courts has disappeared.
About 60% of cases assigned to County Court 7 and 64% assigned to County Court 13 have not yet been formally filed by prosecutors, according to data presented by the courts. Judges warned those cases could quickly swell their active caseloads if prosecutors move forward with them.
The uncertainty is heightened by a change in leadership coming to the District Attorney’s Office in January. Judges said they do not know whether the next administration will continue the current approach of reviewing family violence cases more extensively before filing them or move more quickly to bring charges.
Judge Melanie Lira, who presides over County Court 7, argued that keeping the impact courts through the remainder of the fiscal year would give the county time to see what happens before eliminating that additional capacity.
Moody said the courts appear to have succeeded at the job they were created to do but questioned whether the possibility of another backlog is enough to justify continuing them during a difficult budget year.
“Those courts were stood up to deal with that backlog, and if that backlog has been removed and there is not an imminent threat of a new backlog, then I think we need to pull that back,” Moody said.
Specialty courts compete for limited resources
Judges are also seeking additional resources for Bexar County’s specialty courts, which handle defendants dealing with issues including substance use, mental health, family violence and challenges associated with military service.
Among the requests is about $251,000 for an associate judge and a support position that judges proposed sharing among misdemeanor specialty courts based on demand.
Budget officials recommend against adding the positions, saying the workload data does not justify two additional full-time employees.
Judges countered that specialty courts require more intensive supervision of participants than traditional criminal dockets and that workloads vary considerably among programs.
The Veterans Treatment Court was among those making the case for additional help. Judge Erica Dominguez, who oversees the program while also presiding over County Court 6, said it currently has about 137 participants and more than 100 people awaiting admission.
The court is also trying to preserve a manager position previously supported by a Texas Veterans Commission grant. County officials are attempting to move the position onto another federal grant; if that fails, the court wants the county to fund it, while budget officials recommend shifting its duties to an existing project director.
