The Commissioners Court of Lamb County met in regular session on Monday at the Lamb County Court House in Littlefield to discuss an 11-item agenda.
The meeting was called to order at 9 a.m. by Lamb County Judge James DeLoach and the invocation was given by District Judge Scott Say.
There was nobody present for the public comment portion of the meeting.
Consent Agenda: a) Consider and take appropriate action on minutes from Previous meeting(s); Judge DeLoach stated that there two sets of minutes from the July 28th meeting and the August 4th meeting and they were both in order. 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 $498,016.73. d) Consider and take appropriate action on payroll; there was none. e) Consider and take appropriate action on Departmental Reports; packets.
The motion to approve the Consent Agenda was made by Commissioner Cory DeBerry and seconded by Commissioner Lee Logan. The motion carried.
Item four was to consider and take appropriate action on road use agreement with Nextera.
“This is with Yellowhouse Wind Farm that’s coming in from up around Olton,” Judge DeLoach said. “We usually do these road use agreements in a Tax Abatement with these solar farms and wind farms. We have done one where they were going to use some of Precinct 2’s roads to get into a wind farm that was going in in Parmer County. This one will actually be built in Lamb County if it is built.”
This item was tabled until the next meeting.
The next item on the agenda was to consider and take appropriate action on proposed tax rate.
“This year, we had the third portion of the Milk Plant Tax Abatement come on,” Jones said. We also had some new values that were not on the Tax Roll last year. We’ve gotten a nice bump of $51 million, so are no new revenue tax rate is .7275. Our voter approval rate, which is the highest rate we can go to without having an election, is .7649. Our current tax rate is .7600, and our De minimis tax rate is .7619.”
She added, “The budget is not final, but if we were to go with the no new revenue rate, we would be short $485,000, if we go with the current tax rate, we would be short approximately $147,000, which means that we are dipping into fund balance to finish funding those amounts.”
“Normally we’re about half a million dollars in our fund balance,” Judge DeLoach stated.
The motion to keep the current tax rate of .7600 was made by Commissioner Logan and seconded by Commissioner DeBerry. The motion carried.
Items six and seven were to set public hearing for the Tax Increase and FY 2026 Budget.
The public hearing for the Tax Increase and FY Budget was set for August 25th at 10 a.m. in the Commissioners Court Room at the Lamb County Courthouse. They will also be approving the budget that day as well.
Item eight on the agenda was consider and take appropriate action on Salaries and allowances for Elected Officials.
“A 3-percent increase would be an increase of $153,000 and the cost of a 5-percent increase would be about $ 224,000,” Judge DeLoach said.”
“I understand where you all are coming from, but it’s also a big expense and cost on employees of this county,” Sheriff Gary Maddox said. “I’m doing what I can with Senate Bill 22 money, but I’ve got some dispatchers that I can’t give any of it to. It’s getting harder and harder to find people. I was told on Friday that the state is looking at prison guards starting Sept. 1st, getting $27/hour. What that is going to cause for us is, Lubbock Sheriff’s Office is going to be forced to go to $27/hour to keep from losing their people and I’ve heard that the facility out here is looking at going to closer to $27/hour to keep from losing their people because they can’t get fully staffed.”
He added, “The employees that we have here and are loyal to us, we need to take care of them, whether it’s a 3-percent, and it may not mean a whole lot in their paycheck, but it means something to them and shows them that we care.”
The motion to set elected officials salaries and approve a 3-percent raise across the board and 5percent raise for the Sheriff’s Office (which will be paid out of SB22 money) was made by Commissioner Logan and seconded by Commissioner Danny Short. The motion carried.
Judge DeLoach refused the raise.
Future agenda items were discussed.
LHC Mike McNutt gave a brief update on the Hospital. Selena Sanchez said that they set the Christmas Tree lighting date for Dec. 1st and the Christmas Bash is going to be Dec. 12th.
There was nothing to discuss during Budget Workshop and with no further business to discuss, Commissioner Short made a motion to adjourn and it was seconded by Commissioner Kent Lewis. The motion carried and the meeting was adjourned at 10:15 a.m.