Jose Guerrero 
Brownsville- On Tuesday, August 20th Cameron County officials and community members voiced their opinions for several topics on the county’s agenda. Out of many topics that day, the main issue with community members was pay raises for commissioners and other elected officials.
For County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr. the proposed pay raise would have a $48,000 increase on his salary and a $32,000 increase for all other county commissioners.
The proposed compensation for elected officials was turned down almost as soon as the meeting started with commissioners stating that they just don’t have the budget for pay raises at the moment.
“I think they made the smart move, the main motive of the people who attended here were saying no you don’t deserve one right now and you don’t deserve one that high and that’s just the way it is. There’s a history of people who have been prosecuted for corruption and that’s sad. If they’re corrupt they oughta be prosecuted: bottom line,” said Cameron County resident, Norm Rourke.
“The Commissioners Court stopped reviewing its salary, and that’s why we are at such a disparate rate. Some people may say that this is a part-time job. All I can tell is that from my perspective it’s not. I’m literally on call 24/7, and that’s fine. I knew that coming in, and I have no problem, but I can tell you the first thing I wanted to address when I came into office was the fact that our employees at the county level had not been addressed,” said County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr.
The county judge commissioned a study and that study indicated that we were far below market value especially when it comes to our first responders, our jailers, and our deputy sheriffs.
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