BELL COUNTY, Texas — The Bell County Commissioners Court approved the distribution of more than $413,000 in Child Safety Fee Allocations to Bell County and Bell County cities on Monday.
These funds come from a $1.50 fee collected on every vehicle registration, according to a news release. In the 2021 fiscal year, the county registered a little more than 306,000 vehicles, which resulted in nearly $459,500 in Child Safety fees.
This represents an increase of 10% over fiscal year 2020, said Shay Luedeke, Tax Assessor-Collector for Bell County.
Luedeke says roughly half of this growth to the vehicle registration waiver that was put in place in 2020 in response to COVID-19. Additionally, he says, many new cars were bought in the last year, and many new residents made the decision to move to Bell County.
Child Safety Fee Allocations are distributed to city’s based on population. This year marks the first time the 2020 Census data will be used to determine allocations. For that reason, some municipalities have seen increases to their allocations, while others may have decreased.
By Texas law, the funds must be used for Crossing Guard Programs. However, if a city does not have such a program, School Districts can use the funds on health, nutrition, child abuse prevention and intervention, or drug and alcohol abuse prevention.
Below is a breakdown of how much each city in Bell County will be receiving:
- Killeen -- $170,775.89
- Temple -- $ 91,549.11
- Harker Heights -- $36,925.63
- Belton -- $25,719.76
- Nolanville -- $6,616.02
- Morgan's Point Resort -- $5,168.76
- Salado -- $2,687.76
- Troy -- $2,646.41
- Little River-Academy -- $2,232.91
- Rogers -- $1,240.50
- Holland -- $1,199.15
- Bartlett -- $744.30
- Bell County (Unincorporated Areas) -- $65,994.75
Luedeke plans to schedule presentations of the funds during city council meetings.
No other information was released at this time.