Weatherford
Parker County's adopted 2026-27 budget: $3,086,126 more in property taxes per the cover page
The cover page filed with the county clerk Sept. 28 says the budget raises 3.7 percent more in property taxes than last year's, 92 percent of it from new property, at a rate equal to the no-new-revenue rate; the five-member court is recorded as For. The detail report generated Sept. 29 totals $106,016,295 for the General Fund and $42,637,390 for the Sheriff's Office.
Parker County's adopted budget for the 2027 fiscal year is posted on the county's Financial Transparency page as the 2026-2027 Adopted Budget and Cover Letter, a 65-page document whose first page is stamped received and filed for record by the county clerk on Sept. 28, 2026. The cover page states, as required by Section 111.008 of the Texas Local Government Code, that the budget will raise more total property taxes than last year's budget by $3,086,126 or 3.7 percent: $4,070,514 for the General Fund Maintenance and Operations, $381,715 for the Lateral Road and Bridge Fund, and a $1,366,103 decrease for Debt Service. Of that amount, it says, $2,823,841 or 92 percent is tax revenue to be raised from new property added to the tax roll this year, and the tax rate used in the budget is the same as the no-new-revenue rate.
The record vote on the cover page lists County Judge Pat Deen and Commissioners George Conley, Jacob Holt, Larry Walden and Mike Hale as For the proposal. Its table of adopted property tax rates compares FY2026 with FY2027: a general fund rate of $0.178562 and $0.185698, a debt service rate of $0.056460 and $0.049859, a lateral road rate of $0.050048 and $0.049162, and a total rate of $0.285070 and $0.284719. The total no-new-revenue rate is given as $0.285070 and $0.284719, the no-new-revenue maintenance and operations rate as $0.228722 and $0.231075, and the voter-approval rate as $0.315233 and $0.318144. The principal debt obligation secured by property taxes is stated as $188,800,000. The $0.284719 total matches Order 26-42, which the Ledger reported Oct. 2.
The budget document lists each fund's revenue and expense. The General Fund balances at $106,016,295, with $55,624,650 in current property tax revenue, $550,000 in delinquent property tax revenue and $15,217,346 in unexpended fund balance among its revenue lines. The Road and Bridge fund balances at $19,454,024, with $15,579,524 in current property tax revenue, and transfers $4,381,857 to Precinct 1, $5,425,550 to Precinct 2, $5,245,539 to Precinct 3 and $4,351,078 to Precinct 4; the four precinct funds balance at $5,901,156, $7,897,907, $11,426,063 and $7,504,066. The Interest and Sinking fund balances at $15,453,864, with $14,934,941 in current property tax revenue, and its expense lines are the principal, interest and fiscal-service payments on the 2016 and 2020 refunding bonds, the 2017, 2020 and 2024 road bonds and the 2021 tax note.
A companion 2026-2027 Supplemental Budget Detail Report, a 50-page Next Year Budget Detail Report generated Sept. 29, 2026, totals the adopted budget by department. Its grand total for all funds is $138,745,487 in expense, with the General Fund at $106,016,295. Within the General Fund, the Sheriff's Office totals $42,637,390, of which the Jail division is $19,708,396: $19,008,396 in contract services and $700,000 in inmate care.
Basis: the adopted budget (document 14256; its cover page is an image, read from the page at 200 dots per inch and checked against OCR for every figure and name) and the supplemental detail report (document 14258), both on the county's Financial Transparency page, read Oct. 5, 2026; the order, notice and impact statement the Ledger reported Oct. 2. The grand total is the detail report's own total and includes transfers between funds, such as the Road and Bridge fund's transfers to the four precinct funds, so it is larger than the sum of money the county will spend outside its own accounts. The Ledger did not review the 65 pages of line items beyond the fund totals and revenue lines named here, and the Commissioners Court minutes for September are not on the county's Agenda Center, which lists nothing after Apr. 30, 2026.
Sources: Parker County: 2026-2027 Adopted Budget and Cover Letter (document 14256); Parker County: 2026-2027 Supplemental Budget Detail Report (document 14258); Parker County: Financial Transparency page; The Ledger, Oct. 2: Parker County's 2026 tax rate per Order 26-42
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