The Commissioners of Lamb County held their regularly scheduled meeting at 9 a.m. Monday, August 12, 2024, in the Lamb County Courthouse, where the following items were discussed.
The meeting was called to order at 9:10 a.m. by Lamb County Judge James DeLoach and the invocation was given by Lamb County DA Rickie Redman.
There was nobody present to comment during the public comment portion of the meeting.
Consent Agenda items: a) Consider and take appropriate action on minutes from previous meeting(s); there was one set of minutes and they appeared to be order according to Judge DeLoach. b) Consider and take appropriate action on budget and salary amendments and/or line-item transfers; there were none. c) Consider and take appropriate action on bills presented by the County Auditor; Lamb County Auditor, Gina Jones requested that the commissioners approve bills totaling $730,450.30. d) Consider and take appropriate action on payroll, there was none. e) Consider and take appropriate action on departmental reports, there were none.
The motion to approve the consent agenda items was made Commissioner Danny Short and seconded by Commissioner Lee Logan. The motion carried.
Item four on the agenda was to consider and take appropriate action on advertising for sealed bids for windows for the Courthouse.
“I’ve gotten a quote to replace the rest of the windows in the courthouse, and we are looking at about $400,000,” Judge DeLoach said. “When we bid it out several years ago to replace windows on all three floors was over a million dollars. We’ve got some other plans for the rest of the ARPA money, but this is part of that money. Because it’s over $50,000 we have to go out for sealed bids to find out exactly where we are with that.” The motion to approve going out for sealed bids for windows for the courthouse was made by Commissioner Cory DeBerry and seconded by Commissioner Short. The motion carried.
The next order of business was to consider and take appropriate action on the Proposed Tax Rate.
“Our no new revenue tax rate this year is .7373 and our voter approval rate, which we don’t want to go over because it will trigger an election, is .7711,” Jones explained. Our current tax rate is .746, and we calculated a few different tax rates to see what the difference would be, as shown in your packets.”
She added, “Currently, with the numbers we have in the budget for the general fund, we’re budgeting a little over $500,000 into fund balance, but $300,000 of that is our contingency fund, which we don’t anticipate on spending throughout the year, but it is there in case of emergency. Whenever you all set the proposed rate, if you were to set it at one rate, and then you go through the rest of the budget process and you wanted to do less, you can do less, but you can’t do more.”
Judge DeLoach stated, “The two rates I would like for you all to consider are .75 and .76, and there are several reasons for that, with one of those being, I don’t want us to cut ourselves short with anything that comes up unexpectedly. I would like to recommend setting the proposed tax rate at .76 that way we can build up our reserve fund and also so we can fund our increase that we will talk about on a different item.”
The motion to approve the proposed tax rate of .76 was made by Commissioner Short and seconded by Commissioner Logan. The motion carried.
The next item on the agenda was to set a Public Hearing on Tax Increase.
The Public Hearing on Tax Increase was set for August 26th at 10 a.m.
The first item seven on the agenda was to set a Public Hearing for Fiscal Year 2025 Budget.
The Public Hearing for the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget was also set for August 26th at 10 a.m.
The first item eight was to consider and take appropriate action of Salaries and Allowances for Elected Officials.
“This is not the year we typically give raises, it is our off year, you might say. But, with the way that the economy is and the prices of everything, I have had Gina pull a 3% increase and a 5% increase. With the proposed tax rate that we just set we should be able to fund either one of those. Going back to our departments, most of them are very frugal, they don’t spend money unless they need it, almost every department gives money back.”
He added, “I think we need to take care of our employees the best that we can, which is why I recommend the increase.”
After some discussion, the motion to approve a 5% increase for Salaries and Allowances was made by Commissioner Logan and seconded by Commissioner Short. The motion carried.
The next order of business was to consider and take appropriate action on the Burn Ban. No action was taken.
Future agenda items were discussed.
LHC CEO Mike McNutt gave an update on the hospital saying, “July turned out to be a pretty good month, considering the way it started. 340-B came out on target, bringing in about $82,500. We ended up with about 15 admissions through the ER, and we ended up with 11 babies being born for the month.”
He added, “Sleep Lab is doing good, we made the decision to add two more rooms and that equipment has arrived and will be installed and ready to go by the end of the month, which is definitely needed because we are booked up a month out. We are also partnering with Interim Healthcare to do a Health Fair on August 24th at the Lamb County Ag Center. More details will be released soon on that. We’re trending in the right direction.”
Item nine on the agenda was Budget Work Session.
With no further business to discuss, Commissioner Logan made a motion to adjourn and it was seconded by Commissioner Short. The motion carried and the meeting was Adjourned at 10:24 a.m.