GEORGETOWN – Williamson County will decide next week whether to call a nearly $900 million bond election.
The Commissioners Court authorized staff and legal counsel to prepare documents needed for a potential bond election at the meeting Aug. 1. Commissioners will consider calling the bond election at its next meeting.
The current recommendation sits at $825 million for road projects and $59 million for park projects. A vote would take place Nov. 7, and list both figures as individual propositions.
“I’d like to have everything back to the court for Tuesday so we can do the final ramifications,” County Judge Bill Gravell said at last week’s commissioners’ meeting. “I did see the proposed order, but I think if we voted on the dollar amount today, then (the county) can go back and work out the semantics.”
The $884 million combined bond total is lower than the over $2 billion recommendation of the Citizen Bond Committee.
The committee, which included two members selected by each commissioner and was led by a chair picked by Gravell, introduced their recommendation to the court during the June 27 meeting.
They conducted six public meetings, received input from every Williamson County city’s municipal utility district and heard from citizens themselves to determine which road and park projects should be added to its report.
While the commissioners acknowledged an increasing population can enhance the need for road growth, the recommended number was ultimately trimmed down.
“I don’t think anyone argues the need,” Commissioner Valerie Covey said during the June 27 meeting. “Everybody wants us to hurry up and build it already. The hard part is prioritizing what (projects) we need to do because we don’t have an infinite amount of money at one time.
Since the county last held a bond election in 2019, calling for a bond election would buck a recent trend. The county typically has called for a bond election about every six years, hosting one in 2000, 2006 and 2013 before its latest.
If county residents are called to vote on this bond, exact information for every one of the planned projects do not have to be listed on the ballot. Instead, the amount allotted for road projects will be listed as Proposition A and the amount for park projects as Proposition B.
However, the county said detailed information for each proposition will be available on its website. Additionally, polling sites are expected to have the specific plans on hand during the voting process.
