Primary Department: Tax Assessor-Collector
Primary Department Head/Elected Official: Annette Ramirez
Secondary Department: Choose an item.
Secondary Department Head/Elected Official:
Regular or Supplemental RCA: Regular RCA
Type of Request: Financial Authorization
Project ID (if applicable):
Vendor/Entity Legal Name (if applicable):
MWBE Contracted Goal (if applicable):
MWBE Current Participation (if applicable):
Justification for 0% MWBE Participation Goal: N/A - Goal not applicable to request
Grant Indirect Costs Rate (if applicable):
Justification for 0% Grant Indirect Costs Rate (if applicable): N/A - Not a grant item
Request Summary (Agenda Caption):
title
Request for approval of a supplemental budget for Fiscal Year 2025 in the amount of $2,538,628 for 1) the creation of 49 position control numbers (PCNs) effective April 5, 2025 and 2) additional funding for 11 existing PCNs (3 of the 11 PCNs are reclassifications effective April 5, 2025) to address operational imperatives.
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Background and Discussion:
The Harris County Tax Office is requesting $2,538,628 for 1) the creation of 49 position control numbers (PCNs) and 2) additional funding for 11 existing PCNs (3 of the 11 PCNs are reclassifications) to address operational imperatives.
The Tax Office powers and empowers Harris County by generating, collecting, and disbursing over $10.5B in revenue every year to deliver services to residents. The Tax Office provides direct services to more residents than any other department, but the office’s budget has only increased due to mandated administrative changes and has not increased in line with Harris County’s growth.
The Tax Office is responsible for collecting property taxes for 1.76M taxpayer accounts (which has increased 11% over the last 10 years), collecting hotel occupancy taxes for a rapidly growing hotel market, and processing over 3.49M vehicle registrations and other vehicle services. In 2024, the office handled 2.8M transactions at its branch locations and received 595,632 calls to its call center. The office is also responsible for maintaining an accurate voter roll with over 2.61M voters, registering voters, and supporting multiple elections every year. The range of statutorily required services the office provides are technically complex and require strict compliance with all applicable laws.
No other county department encounters this volume of transactions, activities, or customers while also generating, collecting, and disbursing billions in revenue. Despite the critical role of this office, it has not received the investments it needs to keep pace with growing demands. This impacts the office’s operations in multiple ways:
• Over-Reliance on Temporary Staff: Temps carry out core functions but have a costly, high turnover rate
o 3 temporary employees resign per week, on average
o Turnover Rate: 58% (January - March 2024) compared to 3% for permanent employees
o $3.8M paid to staffing agencies for temporary employees
o 47% of temporary employees have been with the Tax Office for over 6 months
o Temporary employees must work for several months just to recoup the office’s training investment
• Unsustainable Workload: 32% of the Tax Office has over 120 hours of comp time
• Underpaid Employees: Staff are among the lowest paid employees of any county department, with women making up 87% of staff
• Lack of Succession Planning: Office has not been able to hire staff necessary to ensure continuity of operations, leaving the office vulnerable to single points of failure
• Lack of Leadership Team: Limited team to optimize operations and modernize the department
The lack of investment is impacting the Tax Office’s ability to serve residents:
• Long Wait Times at Branches: At over half of the 16 branch locations, residents wait over 30 minutes and often over an hour during peak times. However, given the limited technology used in the queuing system, the branch wait times only include the time residents are waiting inside the branch office. Residents are often waiting outside the office (in the hallway or outside). Thus, current wait time estimates are likely an underestimate of the time residents are actually waiting to receive services.
• Long Hold Times for Calls: Callers wait up to 21 minutes to speak with a specialist and up to 41% of calls are never answered.
• Limited Outreach and Engagement: Residents lack equitable access to resources to help them pay taxes, file for exemptions, register to vote, and access motor services.
Expected Impact:
As Harris County’s population continues to grow, it is imperative that the Tax Office be well-positioned to meet current and future demands, optimize revenue generation and collection, maintain the voter rolls, and deliver best-in-class customer service to Harris County residents. With additional funding, the Tax Office will be able to:
• Reduce long wait times, modernize services, and eliminate inefficiencies
• Decrease over-reliance on temporary employees for core office functions
• Address succession planning and ensure staff are in place to guard against multiple single points of failure that essential operations are vulnerable to
• Align the Tax Office with Harris County’s 5-year Financial Plan and Strategic Plan
• Establish senior leadership to drive solutions to issues, reduce inefficiencies through an exhaustive review of current agreements and operating procedures, and activate initiatives like the prepayment plans and potential revenue-creating opportunities
Alternative Options:
Because this budget request is addressing operational imperatives, there are no alternative options at this time.
County Strategic Plan Goal: 3. Make our economy more inclusive.
• County Strategic Plan Objective: L: Foster more living-wage jobs that ensure worker safety, benefits, and stability across all educational levels.
o Economy Initiative (Goal 3): L1: Design a set of policies for Harris County to set dynamic living wage rates and ensure essential worker protections and high-quality benefits for all Harris County contracts, employees, and economic agreements.
• County Strategic Plan Objective: M: Ensure that Harris County remains the best place in the region to start and grow a business, with a focus on equitable economic growth.
o Economy Initiative (Goal 3): M1: Develop a County economic development strategy that advances effective and equitable economic growth.
County Strategic Plan Goal: 6. Help residents achieve housing stability.
• County Strategic Plan Objective: V: Reduce eviction and foreclosure rates among residents.
o Housing Initiative (Goal 6): V1: Enhance and centralize eviction legal aid and financial assistance programs.
Additional notes related to the Strategic Plan:
This budget request aligns with all of the Strategic Plan’s guiding principles. Specifically, the request is focused on serving people first-equitably and with empathy. The entire budget request is directly tied to better serving the people of Harris County in an equitable and empathetic way.
This request also aligns with the County’s strategic goal to make our economy more inclusive by meeting two objectives directly:
1) Converting temporary positions that pay $15/hour to permanent full-time positions that pay $18/hour will provide a living wage and benefits to workers who carry out the Tax Office’s essential functions and support the county’s overall ability to generate and collect revenue.
2) Increasing the capacity of the Property Tax Division to better assist business owners and homeowners with payments plans and timely process refunds. It will also establish a senior leadership and management team that will develop and implement process improvements, outreach campaigns, and strategic initiatives to ensure Harris County remains the best place in the region to start and grow a business, pursue a career, and raise a family.
Additionally, this request will broadly support Harris County’s strategic goal to help residents achieve housing stability by expanding the Tax Office’s capacity to better serve homeowners who are experiencing difficulty with paying their property taxes and educate homeowners about available exemptions.
Furthermore, in partnership with the Court Offices, the Tax Office’s senior leadership team is planning to implement prepayment plans for homeowners and businesses. Prepayment plans support housing stability and economic development, while improving revenue collection and generating interest.
Prior Court Action (if any):
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Date |
Agenda Item # |
Action Taken |
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Location:
Address (if applicable):
Precinct(s): Countywide
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Fiscal and Personnel Summary |
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Service Name |
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Current Fiscal Year Cost |
Annual Fiscal Cost |
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Labor |
Non-Labor |
Total |
Recurring Expenses |
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Funding Sources |
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Existing Budget |
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1000 - General Fund |
$35,701,468 |
$5,732,440 |
$41,433,908 |
$41,433,908 |
|
Choose an item. |
$ |
$ |
$ |
$ |
|
Choose an item. |
$ |
$ |
$ |
$ |
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Total Existing Budget |
$35,701,468 |
$5,732,440 |
$41,433,908 |
$ |
|
Additional Budget Request (Requires Fiscal Review Request Form) |
|
|
1000 - General Fund |
$2,284,162 |
$254,467 |
$2,538,628 |
$5,103,934 |
|
Choose an item. |
$ |
$ |
$ |
$ |
|
Choose an item. |
$ |
$ |
$ |
$ |
|
Total Additional Budget Request |
$2,284,162 |
$254,467 |
$2,538,628 |
$5,103,934 |
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Total Funding Sources |
$2,284,162 |
$254,467 |
$2,538,628 |
$5,103,934 |
|
Grants - Proposed Budget (For Grants Items only) |
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Labor |
Non-Labor |
Total |
No. of Grant Years |
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Local Match Source - Existing Budget: Choose an item. |
$ |
$ |
$ |
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Local Match Source - Additional Budget Request: Choose an item. |
$ |
$ |
$ |
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Grant Funds Applied for/Awarded (Total) |
$ |
$ |
$ |
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Personnel (Fill out section only if requesting new PCNs) |
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Current Position Count for Service |
435 |
- |
- |
- |
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Additional Positions Request |
49 |
- |
- |
- |
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Total Personnel |
484 |
- |
- |
- |
Anticipated Court Date: 3/27/2025
Anticipated Implementation Date (if different from Court date):4/5/2025
Emergency/Disaster Recovery Note: Not an emergency, disaster, or COVID-19 related item
Contact(s) name, title, department: Samantha Kealoha, Chief of Staff, Harris County Tax Office
Attachments (if applicable): Tax Office FY2025 Supplemental Budget Request Presentation