The Lamb County Commissioners held their regular meeting on Monday, September 23, 2024, in the Lamb County Courthouse, where a 9-item agenda was discussed.
Lamb County Judge James DeLoach called the meeting to order at 10 a.m. and gave the invocation before leading the pledge of Allegiance. There was nobody present to speak during the public comment portion of the meeting.
Consent Agenda Items: a) Consider and take appropriate action on minutes from previous meeting(s); Jude DeLoach stated there was one set of minutes and they appeared to be in order. b) Consider and take appropriate action on budget and salary amendments and/or line-item transfers; none. c) Consider and take appropriate action on bills presented by the County Auditor; Gina Jones requested that the commissioners approve bills totaling $922,946.27. d) Consider and take appropriate action on payroll; Jerry Yarbrough requested that the commissioners approve payroll for Lamb County ending on Sept. 6th, in the amount of $167,826.91. She also requested that the commissioners approve payroll for Juvenile Probation ending on August 31st in the amount of $3,175.55. She also requested that the commissioners approve payroll for LHC ending on Sept. 7th in the amount of $203,647.46. e) Consider and take appropriate action on departmental reports; packets. f) Consider and take appropriate action on Donations; Jones requested that the commissioners approve a donation to the Lamb County Library in the amount of $275 for their Christmas Open House.
The motion to approve the consent agenda items as presented was made by Commissioner Danny Short and seconded by Commissioner Cory DeBerry. The motion carried.
Item number four on the agenda was to consider and take appropriate action on Lamb County’s Retiring Employees Insurance for 2025.
“I didn’t change anything, I left it exactly the same,” Yarbrough said. “It doesn’t cost us anything, we just allow our retired employees to purchase the same insurance we have if they want to. It is a supplement, basically.”
The motion to approve Lamb County’s Retiring Employees Insurance for 2025 was made by Commissioner Lee Logan and seconded by Commissioner Kent Lewis. The motion carried.
Item five on the agenda was to consider and take appropriate action on Managed Services Agreement with Warren Computers.
“I got this from Ben last July, first part of August and we just never got it up here,” Judge DeLoach said.
“The only thing that changed significantly was the amount of data back-up,” Ben Warren said. “It went up considerably. The amount of data that the DA is putting out there that is being backed up to the Cloud increased signifi-cantly because they have the videos coming in from different agencies. That is one thing that increased, but the prices didn’t increase, the back-up is what caused the increase in price.”
He added, “I actually made the discount more than what you guys were getting before, so it is coming out just an increase for the extra back-up.”
The motion to approve the Managed Services Agreement with Warren Computers was made by Commissioner Short and seconded by Commissioner Logan. The motion carried.
The next order of business was to consider and take appropriate action on Notice of General Election November 5, 2024 and Polling places.
Lamb County Clerk, Rene Trevino, stated, “Early voting will begin Oct. 21st through Nov. 1st. Early voting on Oct. 21st through the 25th is going to be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Oct. 26th will be from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Oct. 27th will be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and then Oct. 28th through Nov. 1st will be from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. All of the polling places are the same.”
The motion to approve the Notice of General Election on Nov. 5, 2024 and polling places was made by Commissioner Logan and seconded by Commissioner Lewis. The motion carried.
The next item on the agenda was to consider and take appropriate action on the Burn Ban.
No action was taken. Future agenda items were discussed; Commissioner Logan said he is doing some price checking on doing the parking lot at the JP Office, but hasn’t heard anything back yet.
Sheriff Gary Maddox stated that possibly next Commissioners Court he will have a contract for the flock cameras that they will be getting through the auto task force. They were approved for four of them. He said the first year is all paid for and the second year they will have to pick up a little bit of the cost.
LHC CEO Mike McNutt gave an update on operations at LHC, saying, “September has been a good month for us so far, especially coming off of an August that was kind of slow for us. I checked this morning [Monday] and we have had about a dozen ER admits, which is what we had for the whole month of August. We have had a good number of in patients. All four sleep lab rooms are up and running and are booked about three weeks out on all four.”
He added, “Our auditors were able to come up with a program out there that is a volume decrease opportunity. They found that in 2022-2023, we had over a 5% decrease in volume, so there is an opportunity to get some dollars back because of that. We’ll have to apply for that and do a little narrative stating what we think attributed to that. We recognize how much assistance you guys have given us and this conversation today would be a lot different if it wasn’t for y’all, so we’re having some internal conversations about getting back on a repayment plan to you guys. We want to set something up that is achievable and realistic.”
With no further business to discuss the motion to adjourn was made by Commissioner Logan and seconded by Commissioner Short. The motion carried and the meeting was adjourned at 10:19 a.m.