The Commissioners of Lamb County held their regularly scheduled meeting at 9 a.m. Monday, August 19, 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 he also gave the invocation.
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 $555,747.51. d) Consider and take appropriate action on payroll, Jerry Yarbrough requested that the commissioners approve payroll for Lamb County ending on August 9th in the amount of $163,927.23 and for LHC ending on August 10th in the amount of $209,935.70. e) Consider and take appropriate action on departmental reports, there were none. f) Consider and take appropriate action on Donations; the Lamb County Library received 291 lightly used books from Dr. George and a monetary donation of $50.
The motion to approve the consent agenda items was made Commissioner Danny Short and seconded by Commissioner Lee Logan. The motion carried.
Item number four on the agenda was to consider and take appropriate action on Rural Law Enforcement Grant Agreement.
“This is the Senate Bill 22 Grant that the Sheriff’s Office gets,” Judge Deloach stated. “Basically, we had to apply for that; it has been sent in and we got our copy back and we just need to accept and approve it by the Commissioners Court.”
The motion was made by Commissioner Logan and seconded by Commissioner Short to approve the Rural Law Enforcement Grant Agreement. The motion carried.
The next order of business was to consider and take appropriate action on the Bond Supervision Program update.
Lamb County Adult Probation Director Ben Diaz gave a brief presentation about how their Bond Supervision Program is doing.
“The county helps with $25,000 to help fund a salary for an officer for my office to oversee the bond supervision program,” Diaz said. “The first full year that we had the Bond Supervision Program in 2022, we had 28 people throughout the year on Bond Supervision with a total of 30 charges. In 2023, it jumped up to 53 people and then in 2024, it jumped again to 63 people who are on Bond Supervision for 92 separate charges. 47 of those cases were felony cases and 45 were misdemeanor cases.”
He added, “There are 39 additional people who have been put on bond supervision, but are still in jail because they haven’t made bond. Over the last year, we have filed on eight people, who have violated their conditions of their bond. We had 280 separate people that we’re supervising right now. 164 of those are direct supervision, meaning we directly supervise them in our office. 38 of those people are indirect supervision, who have been transferred to other counties or states, they still report to us, but it is not as intensive as direct supervision is. Fifteen people are under pre-trial diversion supervison, which is a program the DA’s office puts low-risk or first-time offenders on to give them a chance to be successful in this program and not get a conviction. 63 of those 280 people are on Bond supervision. Our first year of the program, we collected a little over $3,500, in 2023, we collected $6,850, and then in 2024 so far, we have collected $ 10,200. This money is not money my CSCD gets to keep, it goes back into the county to help offset the money that the county is paying for that position in my office.”
Diaz also stated that 93% of their felony probationers and 98% of their misdemeanor probationers complete their term.
No action was taken. The next item on the agenda was to consider and take appropriate action on the Burn Ban.
After a brief discussion among the Commissioners, no action was taken.
Future Agenda Items were discussed.
Dylan Brown gave a brief update on the Hospital.
There were a few things talked about during the Budge Work Session.
Pursuant of Government code 551, sub-chapter D and authorized
See COMMISSIONERS Pg. 2 by the Texas Open Meetings Act, the Commissioners went into Executive Session at 9:58 a.m. and returned to the regular meeting at 10:09 a.m.
With no further business to discuss the motion was made by Commissioner Logan and seconded by Commissioner Kent Lewis to adjourn. The motion carried and the meeting was adjourned at 10:09 a.m.