Open Letter to Residents from Rockwall County Commissioners Court Regarding Fiscal Year 2027 Budget

ROCKWALL COUNTY, TX (Sept. 22, 2026)

Letter to all Residents of Rockwall County,

The Rockwall County Commissioners Court has finished and adopted the County’s budget for the upcoming Fiscal Year 2027 which begins October 1, 2026. After months of debate a budget has been agreed upon that was unanimously approved by the Commissioners Court and which completely funds the County government.

This is a very fiscally conservative budget that addresses the needs of our growing County by supporting law enforcement (including a nearly $1 million expansion of our District Attorney’s offices), giving raises in order to keep pace with inflation and provide competitive salaries to retain our great employees, paying for increased health insurance premiums (over $1 million), funding necessary capital improvements, implementing technology improvements that will better position the county for growth and provide for more efficient and cost effective services, and keeping the needs of the citizens at the center of every decision.

In November 2021 Rockwall County voters approved the issuance of road bonds (“TRIP 21 Bonds”) in the total amount of $150,000,000. In response to your input, the current Commissioners Court has made building and improving roads its number 1 priority, and in February 2026 the County issued $50 million of new bonds to put into road projects throughout the County. The increase in debt service payments due to the issuance of those TRIP 21 Bonds will be $3.4 million; which increase is an amount that is greater than the budgeted increase in our tax rate.

To fund the FY 2027 Budget, the tax rate will be $0.2620 per $100 of home value, which is an increase of $0.011 per $100 from the current tax rate of $0.2510. That tax rate increase is only $0.011 despite needing to add $0.0123 to the tax rate for increased County debt attributable to the new road bond debt. Significantly, the amount of the total tax rate increase is less than the increase of the voter approved new bond debt. This was accomplished by the Commissioners Court working diligently to save money elsewhere in the budget.

The new Budget also provides for the County to spend $4,610,000 from our unassigned reserves. This was done in order to keep the tax rate as low as possible. What this means is that we are taking our fund balance reserves down to approximately 4.8 months of budgeted expenses for FY 2027. This amount is within our fund balance policy (which calls for a reserve of 4 – 6 months}; but to be safe, before tapping into our reserves, we checked with the County’s financial advisor to make sure doing so wouldn’t adversely affect our AAA credit rating. Without using those reserve funds, the tax rate would have been raised to $0.2833 per $100 of home value. The Commissioners Court believes that the use of those reserve funds to keep taxes lower is a wise tradeoff.

We take our fiscal responsibilities very seriously and thank you for the confidence you have placed in us.

Sincerely,

Frank New, Rockwall County Judge

Bobby Gallana, Comm. Pct. 1

Dana Macalik, Comm. Pct. 2

Lorne Liechty, Comm. Pct. 3

John Stacy, Comm. Pct. 4

Submitted press release by Jim Barto, Public Information Officer, Rockwall County. 

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