THE CONTRACT WITH THE RESIDENTS OF BEXAR COUNTY
Real accountability starts on Day One.
According to The Taxpayer Protection Project, Bexar County is in debt to the tune of $3.6B as of Fiscal Year 2024. That means, based on our population of about 2.1 million residents, we each owe about $1,732 dollars.
Bexar County doesn’t need a mayor. We need a stable, disciplined financial leader to make our way out of this hole. This is Patrick’s contract with the residents of Bexar County.
Adopted Budget
Permanent Obligations
Overtime Crisis
HIGHEST in Texas
Presiding Officer Authority
These four commitments belong to the presiding officer alone. They begin January 1 and require no majority vote, no negotiation and no coalition.
72-Hour Agenda Transparency Policy
All backup materials for every Commissioners Court session will be published a full 72 hours before the gavel falls. No last-minute agenda insertions. No thousand-page documents dropped the morning of a vote. A $2.83 billion budget belongs to the public. They will see it before I call the vote — because it is your government.
Results Oriented Budgeting (ROB) Process Directive
The ROB three-question framework — Is it working? Can we prove it's working? Does it justify its full cost? — becomes the required standard for every budget presentation before this court, effective Day One. A presiding officer directive. No vote required. Every department answers these questions on the record before any appropriation is approved.
LEGIT Taskforce Convened
The Local Efficiency in Government Investigation Taskforce applies zero-based budgeting review, department by department beginning Day One. Every department justifies its full existence from zero. No baseline assumptions. No automatic renewals. The City of San Antonio's own zero-based review identified over $110 million in FY2026 budget solutions. Bexar County has not applied the same discipline to a larger budget. This will change January 1, 2026.
Public Accountability Data Portal
Within 90 days, all contracts over $50,000 posted proactively online without requiring a public records request. Vendor names, amounts, renewal dates, performance outcomes. Bexar County residents should not have to file paperwork to find out how their money is spent. That ends Day One. The portal launches within 90 days.
Public Safety and Emergency Management
Texas statute places emergency management authority with the county judge.
Flood Infrastructure and Drowning Prevention
No resident should die because of inadequate flood drainage infrastructure in Bexar County. Within 90 days, I will direct a comprehensive audit of flood-prone roadways, drainage systems and high-risk crossings where fatalities have occurred or are predictable. No unnecessary human death is an acceptable outcome of deferred infrastructure maintenance. The audit is unilateral. Capital improvements require a court vote and budget appropriation. The public accounting of what has been deferred and at what human cost begins immediately.
Protect Access — Worship, Work, and Medical Care
Every Bexar County resident has the right to access their house of worship, their workplace, and medical care — including family members accompanying patients. When that access is threatened or obstructed, county government has an obligation to respond. As Bexar County Judge, I will work with law enforcement, the sheriff and city partners to ensure these protections are active, communicated and enforced. This is not an abstract commitment. It is a duty of the office.
Emergency Management and 911 Coordination Plan
A comprehensive emergency management and 911 operations coordination plan delivered within 90 days. Bexar Metro 911 serves 22 jurisdictions and 2 million residents. Coordination gaps between city police, county sheriff, constables and EMS are not acceptable at this scale. The plan will be public, tested and updated on a defined schedule.
Continuity of Operations Plan
A continuity of operations plan covering essential county services will be developed, documented and tested within 12 months. Natural disasters, cyber events, public health crises — county government must function through all of them. County government exists to serve residents in their most difficult moments. That obligation does not pause because of a crisis.
Fiscal Discipline — Jail, Care, ARPA and Spending Accountability
Final budget adoption requires a court majority. What does not require a majority is public accounting. A commissioner can vote against a budget proposal. He cannot vote against a published audit.
Save Lives at the Jail — A Management Failure with a Documented Fix
People are dying in the Bexar County jail. The facility is overcrowded and understaffed through deliberate management choices. Bexar County spends $15.3 million per year on overtime because county management chose the most-expensive-possible staffing model and called it unavoidable. It is not unavoidable. It is a choice. As Bexar County Judge, no unnecessary deaths in the Bexar County jail is the acceptable outcome.
EXPENDITURE
VS. DIRECT HIRE
OPERATIONS AUDIT
Within 90 days, I will publish a complete jail operations and mental health diversion center audit. That audit is unilateral. Implementing the staffing model it recommends requires a court vote. The public will have access to both the audit and the voting record. A commissioner who votes against fixing a $15.3 million management failure will own that vote in public, with his or her name attached.
Intermediate Care Center — For Those Who Should Not Be in Jail and Do Not Need a Hospital
Bexar County is spending jail money on people who do not belong in jail and hospital money on people who do not need a hospital. An intermediate care center provides the right level of care at the right cost while redirecting resources away from the most expensive interventions and toward the most effective ones. I am committed to delivering a funding plan that works. This is not a wish list item — it is a promise.
COMMITTED TO SECURING
THROUGH COURT VOTE
REDIRECTED TO THIS CENTER
The needle sharing program funding will be redirected to this center. I will personally secure private funding for half the cost before asking taxpayers to fund the other half. This is the fiduciary standard — do not spend taxpayer money until we have exhausted every alternative source first. The court vote for the public funding portion will come after the private funding commitment is documented and public.
COVID-Era ARPA Funds Full Audit
Ninety-five million dollars of pandemic-era ARPA funds were spent creating permanent county positions. The one-time Federal money is gone. The permanent obligations remain on Bexar County taxpayers indefinitely. Within 60 days, I will publish a full accounting of: what was spent, what permanent positions were created, what the ongoing annual cost is, and how those obligations fit within a $28 million structural shortfall. You should have access to the truth — it is your government.
Results Oriented Budgeting (ROB) for FY2027
Every department will present a full zero-based budget justification for FY2027. No department receives a baseline appropriation because it existed last year. Every dollar will answer three questions: Is it working? Can we prove it's working? Does it justify its full cost? The City of San Antonio's own zero-based review has already demonstrated this methodology works locally. The question for Bexar County is why the same discipline has never been applied to a $2.83B budget.
Redirect Spending to Services for the Majority of Bexar County Residents
A $2.83B county budget must prioritize the residents who fund it. That means every program answers for its outcomes before receiving another appropriation — and dollars freed from programs that cannot demonstrate results are redirected toward services that directly benefit the majority of Bexar County residents. Public safety, flood infrastructure, mental health intervention, aquifer protection and direct community services are the priorities. The LEGIT Taskforce makes this accounting visible and public before any court vote.
Management Standards — How County Government Operates
These commitments govern how the county hires, compensates, incurs debt, spends on lobbying and treats the people who work for and depend on Bexar County government.
Merit-Based Compensation and Performance Reviews — Reinstated
Compensation at Bexar County will be based on performance, qualifications and results. Positions will be filled on merit. The County Manager and staff will undergo objective performance reviews on a published schedule. As a financial adviser focused on values-based client service, I understand performance very clearly: the people doing the work deserve to be paid for what they deliver. County taxpayers are entitled to the same standard.
Management directive within presiding officer authority. Day One implementation.
No New Government Employees Until Wages Catch Up with Property Taxes
Property taxes in Bexar County have significantly outpaced median household incomes over time. County government cannot continue adding permanent positions while the residents funding those positions fall further behind. New county positions will not be created until county employee wages reflect meaningful progress toward closing the gap. Public safety positions needed to fix the jail staffing crisis are the explicit exception to this standard.
No Pay Raises for County Elected Officials Until Residents' Wages Catch Up
This commitment applies to me first. I will not accept a pay raise as Bexar County Judge until median household income in Bexar County demonstrates meaningful progress. We need to move toward closing the gap between property taxes and residents’ wages. County elected officials asking residents to absorb rising tax bills while increasing their own compensation is not a standard I will participate in. I will ask the full court to adopt this standard as well.
No Taxpayer-Funded Lobbying by the County
Bexar County will not be spending taxpayer dollars to hire lobbyists or fund lobbying efforts at the state or Federal level. If county government wants to advocate for a position in Austin or Washington, county officials and their staff can make that case directly and on their own time. Taxpayer money is not a lobbying fund. County representatives who want to travel and advocate for county positions should raise those funds independently.
Certificate of Obligation Criteria — Published Before Any Vote
No Certificate of Obligation will come to a vote before the county has published clear, objective criteria: when COs are appropriate, what purposes they may serve, what repayment structure is required and how the obligation fits within overall debt capacity. Bexar County already carries the highest per capita debt of any of Texas' ten largest counties. Every new obligation must be justified against that reality in public before the vote is called, without exception.
Employee Health Insurance — Efficiency and Cost Relief for County Families
County employees and their families deserve health insurance options that work — and a benefits structure that does not consume the wages they earn. A comprehensive review of Bexar County employee health insurance will identify options to reduce costs to employees and their families while maintaining quality coverage. As an experienced financial adviser, I understand that health insurance costs are not an abstract budget line. They are a real burden on real families.
My job as Bexar County Judge will be to protect taxpayers as best I can.
No financial advisor built on a values-based methodology makes representations to clients he cannot support. I will not make them to voters either. Some of what Bexar County needs requires a court majority. That is reality. The Court will not always vote my way but I will work every day to protect Bexar County taxpayers as best as I can.
What I Control on Day One — No Vote Required
Commitments 1 through 8 are mine to execute from the moment I take office. The transparency policy, ROB process directive, LEGIT Taskforce, data portal, flood audit, access protection, emergency management and continuity plan all belong to the presiding officer. They begin January 1. The merit-based compensation and performance review directive fall immediately under management authority.
What Requires a Court Vote
The full FY2027 zero-based budget, jail staffing reform, the intermediate care center, spending redirections, the hiring standard, elected official pay policy, lobbying prohibition, CO criteria and health insurance reform all require a majority. A commissioner can vote against a proposal. He cannot vote against a published audit, a public ROB analysis or a CO criteria document. Public accountability does not require a majority. It requires a presiding officer willing to use it.
Building Working Relationships Across the Court
The Republican commissioner for Precinct 3 shares the fiscal conservatism, debt reduction and public safety platform that anchors this contract. He is a governing partner from Day One. Beyond that, there are pragmatic common-ground opportunities across the court on infrastructure, public health, transparency and aquifer protection. Every opportunity will be pursued with the same discipline applied to every client relationship: find the shared value and build from there.
The Long-Term Math
Precinct 2 will be contested in November 2026. If that result changes the court's composition, the fiscal reform agenda that begins with unilateral presiding officer tools in 2027 gains the court majority needed to complete it. This is a governing plan built on real arithmetic, delivered to you before the election, because you deserve to know the math before you vote — not after.
I am making this commitment for two terms. If I do not deliver, I will not ask for your vote again.
I will serve a maximum of two terms as Bexar County Judge. If I deliver the results in this contract, two terms is the right amount of time to complete the work and hand it to the next steward. If I do not deliver — barring circumstances that prevent me from performing the duties of this office entirely — I will not ask Bexar County taxpayers for another opportunity.
A fiduciary who does not perform for his client does not ask the client to stay. I am applying that standard to myself, in public, before I take office. Accountability without consequence is not accountability.
“We cannot stand by and watch as Bexar County digs itself deeper and deeper into debt. We must act so taxpayers can enjoy a local government that truly works for the common good.”