Collin County Commissioners Court Preview — August 3, 2026

Bottom Line (Ironically, at the Top)

First, District Clerk Mike Gould is hosting the Carter BloodCare bus in front of the Russell Steindam Courthouse on August 21 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., with permit fees waived. Go give blood (it might be hot enough to make your blood boil).

The most notable item on the agenda is a public hearing on revisions to the county’s subdivision, floodplain, and manufactured home rental community regulations regarding how land gets developed outside city limits. A lot of this is in engineering-speak, but it’s important because most new residential development is happening outside city limits (that’s a subject of another article). The Court will hear the annual law enforcement pay and pension reports. Consent and FYI items total $1,569,869.18, led by $946,029 for ambulance service in the northern and eastern part of the county.

Not on this Meeting’s Agenda, but the Clock Is Ticking

There’s no bond item on this agenda, but there may be one soon. The Murphy Monitor and the Wylie News both reported last month that commissioners received a staff report on a possible $820 million bond package for the November ballot. It’s headlined by another major jail expansion, with county officials acknowledging the jail runs at or above capacity most of the time. County Administrator Yoon Kim told the Court he had looked at a $1.2 billion package before cutting it back to $820 million.

Here’s why it matters today: the last day to place a measure onto the November 3 ballot is Monday, August 17, in two weeks. An $820 million bond ask is the largest single decision this Court will make all year. If it’s not made this year, it’ll need to be made next year. If it is, and I’m County Commissioner for Precinct 4, I’ll scrutinize it and report on it as diligently as I did the Plano bond measures when I served on Plano City Council.

Logistics

Review the full agenda here. Meetings start at 1:30 p.m. at the Jack Hatchell Administration Building, 4th Floor, 2300 Bloomdale Road, McKinney, TX 75071. You can sign up to speak at Commissioners Court meetings in person by filling out a blue card shortly before the meeting. You may alternatively share your thoughts by emailing the Commissioners Court through their contact info here. Videos of the meetings can be viewed here.

Commissioners Court Business (General Discussion Items)

1. 1. Public hearing on proposed regulations update: Three rulebooks have been rewritten at once in cohesion with one another: Subdivision Regulations, Floodplain Management Regulations, and Manufactured Home Rental Community Regulations. These are the rules that decide how wide your street is, whether your lot drains, and what gets built next to you (to a degree) outside city limits in unincorporated Collin County. Staff properly solicited feedback from the engineering, real estate, and development communities in advance. The way I see it, updating floodplain rules on a quiet Monday in August is better than reactively updating them the week after a flood. A little like going to the grocery store full rather than hungry. If you own land in the county (outside city limits), this is the meeting where your comments go into the record. Instructions for speaking at the meeting or sharing your thoughts with the Commissioners court are above under “Logistics” and at the bottom under “How to Engage.”

1. 1. 2026 Law Enforcement Compensation Presentation: This is HR’s annual market benchmark of county pay against Dallas, Denton, Tarrant, Bexar and Fort Bend counties and against the cities of Plano, Allen, McKinney, Frisco, Richardson, Garland and others. There’s no vote on dollars today. The actual compensation recommendations will come back later. Of note, detention officer turnover ran 27% in 2025 and is projected at 14% for 2026 (I hope that holds), but dispatcher turnover is also at 27% for 2025, but projected to climb to 36%. Those jobs are important. Detention officer pay is the cheapest jail-safety investment on the table, and they’re working under stressful conditions in an over-crowded jail. I’m assuming the drop in turnover is expected once the jail extension comes online, but it would be good to know for certain.

1. 1. 2026 TCDRS Presentation: The annual retirement system report. Collin County’s plan is projected at a 101.9% funded ratio going into 2027; that’s a surplus, not an unfunded liability. The county has historically elected to pay 10% when only 7.40% is required, and dropped some lump sums on top of that, including $17,954,871 in December 2025 to fund a retiree cost-of-living increase. This is good. Lots of Texas city and county governments are underwater on pensions. Collin County isn’t. Good on Collin County and our Court.

1. 1. Update on active and pending grants: The FY2027 grants portfolio totals $20,319,004.51 ($14.19 million active and $6.13 million pending) against a required local match of $538,907.93. Healthcare ($8.06M) and Juvenile Probation ($6.49M) carry most of it, and 64 active positions are grant-funded. That’s 64 jobs riding on money the county doesn’t control other than our ability to successfully receive grants from other government entities (which means the money still came out of your pocket).

Executive Session

Executive session is a closed meeting authorized by Texas law for discussions involving real estate, personnel, pending litigation, or attorney-client matters. Any action taken must return to open session.

The Court reserves the right to convene in closed session on any agenda matter under Texas Government Code Chapter 551 (§§ 551.071–551.076), including consultation with its attorneys. No specific topics were separately itemized on this agenda.

Notable Consent & FYI Items

Total of $1,569,869.18 of your money in proposed expenses

• • Amendment No. 2, ambulance services with the City of Princeton: $946,029 to extend the Northern and Eastern Coalition ambulance contract through October 31, 2026.

• • Amendment No. 1, digital imaging with VRC Companies: $234,000 to add box storage and shredding. The Records Department moves in September and only about half the physical inventory can come along.

• • Asset Management and Capital Planning Software System award: $200,000. With our explosive growth, we have a ton of capital to plan for.

• • Contract renewal, pickup of deceased livestock: $122,000. Renewal 2 of 4, no price increase. Somebody has to do it, and the price hasn’t moved.

• • Amendment No. 1, web application firewall maintenance: $37,801.20 in overage charges from “recent unexpected website traffic,” bringing the total to $116,466.96. The overage itself is the firewall doing its job.

• • FYI — Change Order No. 41, jail Medical Mental Health Expansion: $31,469.25 to reconfigure four existing storm drains, no added days. It’s an FYI rather than a vote. The County Administrator approved it under a standing 2007 court order, so it isn’t in the total above. Running tally: 41 change orders totaling $7,412,721.30, or 7.03% of the contract, bringing the project to $112,845,343.43. On a jail medical build that size, that’s expected. The county publishes every change order with the reason attached. Believe me, you’d much rather they keep coming back for incremental increases than to just budget for whatever they might possibly need from the beginning. This allows for much greater oversight, transparency, and accountability.

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• • Contract renewal, right-of-way acquisition services with LJA Engineering: no dollar figure, because funds are drawn “as needed” from individual road projects, which is why it isn’t in the total. The cover sheet shows FY2026 spending of $2,257,830.32 under this contract, up from $9,300 the year before. This is the third renewal of three, so this is the last one before it goes back out to bid.

• • Texas Health Resources revenue bonds, Series 2026 and a supplement to the Series 2025 bonds: [DON’T PANIC (in large, friendly letters)] Texas Health Resources is borrowing up to $750,000,000 of NON-COUNTY BONDS through a Tarrant County conduit issuer. The only reason it’s coming before the court is that, under the law, since some of the hospitals are in Collin County, if the bonds are to be tax-exempt, the County has to sign off on it. It says plainly: this is not county debt, not a pledge of county credit, and not a guarantee the bonds get paid. Zero dollars of your money. It’s a signature, and it’s the reason Plano and Princeton get hospital construction.

• • Cafeteria services for the courthouse: an award the Budget office marks revenue-generating, so it’s a plus, not a minus, and I’ve left it out of the total.

• • Boards and commissions appointment: Bill Bilyeu (a name most people around the Collin County courthouse will recognize) to the Civil Service Board for an unexpired term running through October 3, 2027. Thank you for serving, Bill.

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Also on the agenda as mandated items: a $20,000 budget amendment from District Attorney Greg Willis, out of the DA’s State Forfeiture Fund rather than the General Fund, to cover this fall’s post-bar intern stipends, plus a set of personnel appointments. The Court has no discretion over either, but I’ve still included it in the dollar total because it’s still your money.

Routine items also on consent: disbursements for the period ending July 23, 2026, indigent defense disbursements, the annual CSCD employee benefits contract, an interlocal agreement with the City of Nevada for tax collection, the final plat for The Preserve of Collin County Phase 1 North, personnel appointments and changes, a $38.98 budget amendment for a scale and measuring tapes for the employee wellness program (which did, in fact, require a court order) and the July 13, 2026 meeting minutes. Three FYIs to cap it off: the July IRS mileage rate increase, turnover, and voluntary terminations.

How to Engage

• • Watch: Video of the meeting is posted here.

• • Speak: Fill out a blue card before the 1:30 p.m. start at the Jack Hatchell Administration Building, 4th Floor, 2300 Bloomdale Road, McKinney. Three minutes per speaker. Today there’s also a formal public hearing on the regulations update.

• • Read: The full agenda and every attachment are online.

• • Contact: Commissioner and County Judge contact information is here. Need an accommodation? Call (972) 548-4631.

B-O-N-D is a four-letter word, but it’s the proper way to capitalize long-lived assets. Whether it’s on the ballot this year, next year, or the year after, we’re going to need bonds for all the infrastructure that we need to prepare for all the people coming to Collin County. We can’t stop them coming and we can’t stop the growth, but we can and must responsibly guide it.

— Shelby