Comal County departments requested $160.5 million for 2024, about $25 million more than the county’s adopted 2023 budget. That comparison opens the county’s official workshop minutes.
The requests would have added 39 county positions and more than $3 million in personnel costs before any final budget decisions. The minutes break that total into 32 full-time positions costing about $2.6 million and seven Road & Bridge positions costing nearly $500,000.
The scale of the requests
The General Fund request rose from about $97 million to about $112 million, while Road & Bridge rose from about $17.5 million to $24.5 million. Other-fund requests increased from about $20 million to nearly $24 million, according to the department-by-department record.
Equipment and other capital or noncapital requests totaled $12.6 million. That included 37 public-safety vehicles estimated at $2.8 million, seven other vehicles and pieces of large equipment costing more than $800,000, and 14 Road & Bridge vehicles or pieces of large equipment estimated at $1.6 million. County Judge Sherman Krause also described a planned $3.5 million allocation for land and right-of-way purchases supporting infrastructure and transportation work.
The Sheriff’s Office request connected part of the proposed spending to school security. The minutes say Comal ISD requested 11 additional school resource officers, which would have increased the program from 16 officers to 27 under a listed 78%–22% cost split. The sheriff also requested another detective, two mental-health deputies and additional supervisory and clerical positions for the jail.
Other requests reached across county services. The District Clerk sought three positions, the Tax Office sought two clerks, and the Treasurer requested one position. Judicial departments discussed clerk reclassifications, court-appointed attorney costs and a proposed associate district judge. Road staff sought dedicated traffic technicians, preventive-maintenance workers, a work-zone safety position and equipment including a milling machine.
Discussion was not adoption
Commissioners Court’s only agenda item was discussion of 2024 Comal County budget requests. The single-item agenda scheduled a workshop rather than an adoption proceeding.
The workshop produced no adoption vote; the adopted 2024 budget is the record needed to show which requests became funded commitments. The minutes document presentations from departments and record that the workshop recessed at 1:23 p.m.
For later budget-cycle context, Comal.News has also examined the county’s 2026 department requests and the schedule for its 2027 budget and tax hearings. Those reports provide reader paths into newer county budget work without turning it into evidence about the 2023 workshop.
Readers can inspect the archived minutes for department names, request summaries and video timestamps, then compare those entries with the adopted 2024 budget when that document is available in the evidence catalog. That comparison would establish which proposed positions, vehicles, equipment and land spending survived the budget process.