More than a year after Texas awarded the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office $3 million to purchase a helicopter for regional anti-gang operations and the county approved $500,000 to launch BCSO’s aviation program, no helicopter has been purchased.
An administrative delay caused the original purchase contract to expire, despite the agency hiring a pilot nearly a year ago.
On Tuesday, Bexar County commissioners approved restarting the procurement process, giving the sheriff’s office another opportunity to acquire the aircraft before the state’s extended grant funding expires in August 2027.
The item, approved without discussion as part of the court’s consent agenda, authorizes the sheriff’s office to prepare a new Request for Proposals after what county documents describe as an earlier procurement effort that “did not result in an executable contract.” Once the solicitation is finalized, it must return to Commissioners Court for approval before it can be released.
The sheriff’s office attributed the delay to an administrative issue that caused the contract to expire before the deal could be completed.
“We are on track to completing the request within the allowed time and look forward to making this a valuable asset to the community we serve,” a department spokesperson said in a statement.
The helicopter was originally announced in July 2025 after state Rep. Marc LaHood secured $3 million through Gov. Greg Abbott’s Texas Anti-Gang Pilot Program. The aircraft is intended to support the regional Texas Anti-Gang Unit, a multi-agency task force made up of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies that investigates criminal organizations ranging from street gangs and drug trafficking networks to human traffickers.
At the time, Sheriff Javier Salazar said the helicopter would provide the task force with its first dedicated aviation resource, reducing its reliance on aircraft from the Texas Department of Public Safety and the San Antonio Police Department while improving surveillance, pursuits and search-and-rescue capabilities.
Salazar noted at the time that the $3 million would also have to cover housing, maintenance and staffing for the helicopter.
“Buying the helicopter is actually the easy part,” Salazar said. “We’ve got to stretch those dollars to cover everything.”
New planning documents submitted with Tuesday’s request provide the clearest picture yet of how the Sheriff’s Office expects to do that. The proposal anticipates using state grant funding through the grant’s extended August 2027 expiration before Bexar County begins assuming annual operating costs.
After that, Bexar County would pay annual operating costs estimated at roughly $443,000 in the first county-funded fiscal year, increasing to nearly $500,000 two years later. Overall operating expenses are projected at nearly $2 million over five years.
The estimates are based on industry averages for an Airbus AS350 B3e flown about 600 hours annually, county officials caution the projections are intended as a planning baseline and will ultimately depend on which helicopter is selected, its maintenance history and where it falls in its service lifecycle.
The county has already committed local funding to support the aviation program beyond the initial state grant. Two months after the grant was announced, Salazar returned to Commissioners Court seeking an additional $500,000 for operational costs, pilot training and a maintenance reserve. During those budget discussions, he also announced the sheriff’s office had hired a retired San Antonio Police Department helicopter supervisor to lead the aviation unit.
Commissioners ultimately approved the request as part of the county’s fiscal year 2025-26 budget, bringing the sheriff’s portion of the $2.8 billion budget to just over $200 million.
