AUSTIN, Texas — Travis County leaders say they're stuck paying the bill for a state-enforced initiative.
The DPS Austin Violent Crimes Task Force ended late last month, but around that same time, Travis County commissioners approved allocating $80,000 in county tax dollars to four precincts.
"It's a cost that's being forced on us by the state," Travis County Commissioner Brigid Shea said.
Travis County leaders say the money is to pay for overtime needed to process the overload of Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) citations that they said unfairly targeted certain neighborhoods.
Shea said DPS's efforts to ramp up enforcement in Austin will cost local taxpayers and that the request came from precincts to pay employees overtime to sort through the overload of citations.
"There were about 16,000 citations issued in a four-month period," Travis County Budget Director Travis Gatlin said. "Then of that, there's about 8,500 that are still pending trying to get entered into the system."
The disparity between the precincts and the number of pending citations concerns some commissioners.
"I think there's there is evidence of discrimination," Shea said.
It was a controversial conversation when DPS first ramped up enforcement last spring under a partnership with the Austin Police Department.
Data provided by the precincts show Precinct 4 has the most pending tickets at 4,000. The precinct covers southeast Travis County, which is mainly made up of low-income residents and residents of color.
"By contrast, Precinct 3 has 95 citations and that's the precinct with the greatest percentage of people who are higher income and white," Shea said.
Precinct 3, which covers southwest Travis County, didn't request any funds. The other precincts will get $20,000 each and said they may need more as they continue to work through the citations.
The Austin-area DPS task force formally ended so state troopers could go to the border. DPS said between last March and December, the task force made more than 84,000 traffic stops, made more than 4,000 arrests, and seized nearly 1,000 pounds of drugs.
A DPS spokesperson told KVUE that the department was proud of the results that the task force was able to produce in such a short time.