County commissioners vote to restrict truck traffic

By Makalah Wright

At the June 2 meeting of Taylor County Commissioners Court, the commissioners touched upon a packed agenda filled with hot topics that focused on the improvement of the city’s infrastructure.

Human Resources Manager Roseann Seelke introduced Erika Agurrie to speak on behalf of the Texas County and District Retirement System and the organization’s retirement plan. Agurrie works at TCDRS as a senior account manager, handling account management and external communications among other job duties.

The TCDRS was created in 1967 by the Texas Legislature and currently has over 900 participating employers —more than 400,000 people are members and retirees within the organization.

Within the retirement plan, the organization’s purpose is for employees to have better benefits and flexibility of retirement options. In the report, over $2.6 billion in benefits were paid in 2025, and 95% of those payments stayed in Texas.

Furthermore, approximately $13.3 million were paid in benefits in Taylor County.

Agurrie spoke on this number, stating, “The reason that’s important today is because every four years, we do an economic study and we want to know where the retirees are living.”

In terms of planned funding, the employer rate for the fiscal 2027 year is expected to hit 10.58% on payroll and the elected rate is expected to be at 12.00% of payroll. The employer rate for this year is 10.91%, marking this as a soon-to-be decrease for next year’s rate.

Agurrie said the reasoning behind this as having “small reserves of extra funding, positive investment year of 12.6%, and a positive demographic experience.”

Commissioners Kyle Kendrick and Randy Williams brought up the approval of an ordinance to place “No Thru Trucks” restrictions on county roads 282 and 353 in precinct 1, county roads 503, 504 and 521 in precinct 2, and county road 283 in precincts 1 and 2.

By imposing the restriction, the commissioners determine that it will be a valuable law enforcement tool to the public by lessening danger, increasing efficiency of traffic flow and control and decreasing the number of accidents to which public safety agencies must respond at the expense of taxpayers.

The restriction will also help reduce substantial damage to the roads and related repair costs to the roads at the expense of taxpayers.

The commissioners approved for the restrictions to go into effect.