What does the $25 million gap in Comal County’s jail borrowing figures mean for taxpayers?

Difference calculated by Comal.News from the two official records; figures are approximate where the budget uses an estimate.

The FY 2027 budget projects $6,027,778 in first-year jail interest, to be funded through debt reserves and capitalized interest. That is a budget projection for an initial financing cost, not the lifetime cost of the certificates. Principal, interest rate and repayment years together determine what the county ultimately pays.

Who pays and who benefits

Order 574 pledges county property taxes toward repayment of the jail certificates. The financing is for jail facilities, making the eventual debt payments a county taxpayer concern even though a borrowing ceiling does not translate into a household bill. The actual principal and repayment terms are the numbers needed for that next calculation.

The adopted 2026 debt tax rate is $0.045024 per $100 of taxable value, compared with $0.046000 in 2025; the total adopted 2026 rate is $0.305015. Those are countywide tax rates. They should not be read as a price tag for this one financing.

What sets the final bill

Under Order 574, designated county officials set the actual issue terms in an executed Approval Certificate, subject to a 6.00% net effective true-interest ceiling and a Feb. 1, 2058 maximum maturity. The ceiling and latest permissible date set boundaries; the certificate’s principal, rate and payment schedule will show where the financing lands inside them.

The county’s FY 2027 runs from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2027. As of Nov. 2, that budget year is still ahead. The next useful comparison is the executed Approval Certificate and final debt schedule against the budget’s jail estimate: how much principal is issued, at what rate, over how many years, and for which project costs? Readers can inspect the adopted budget’s debt schedule while those terms are checked.