The Commissioners Court of Lamb County held their regular meeting on Monday at the Lamb County Courthouse in Littlefield to discuss a six-item agenda.
Lamb County Judge James DeLoach called the meeting to order at 10 a.m. and gave the invocation before leading the U.S. and Texas Pledge of Allegiance.
There was nobody present to comment during the public comment portion of the meeting.
Judge DeLoach skipped over the consent agenda to begin the meeting starting with Item four, which was consider and take appropriate action on IGT funding for Lamb Healthcare Center.
“Things are still going well and we are still doing fine,” LHC CEO Mike McNutt said. “We had our auditor report last week at our board meeting and I was very encouraged by what he said. We have approved by leaps and bounds; the 2024 report was a whole lot better than the 2023 report. We deal really good right now at this stage of our recovery when things go status quo, however, here lately we’ve been thrown a few curve balls. We’ve had to replace a phone system, buy some equipment that we had to replace and an aging building. We’ve had some things come up and we’re not at the point in our recovery where we’re able to deal with those things.”
He added, “We’ve managed pretty well through these things for the most part, but we’ve encountered another unexpected thing, which is why we’re here this morning. We operate off of IGT’s right now, the idea is to let them supplement your operation, but we’re just not there yet. We will get there, but we’re not there yet. IGT’s are very important to us and our everyday operations. Dylan has done a great job of forecasting the highs and lows and when those are coming. We had a projected IGT schedule, but we just recently we received a revised IGT schedule days ago. That revision shows that now we’re not going to receive that dish payment that we were expecting in April. We will get a little bit of money in May, but we won’t get any significant amounts of money until July. We’re requesting an amount of $398,000 and some change, which will give us some good immediate relief.”
The motion to approve funding the IGT for LHC was made by Commissioner Lee Logan and seconded by Commissioner Kent Lewis. The motion carried.
Consent Agenda: a) Consider and take appropriate action on minutes from previous meeting(s); Judge DeLoach stated there was one set of minutes and that they were 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; the Auditor’s Office requested that the Commissioners approve bills totaling $1,310,012.84.
d) Consider and take appropriate action on payroll; Jerry Yarbrough requested that the Commissioners approve payroll for Lamb County ending on April 18th in the amount of $166,195.25; and for LHC ending on April 19th in the amount of $215,897.09.
e) Consider and take appropriate action on departmental reports; Packets.
f) Consider and take appropriate action on Donations; none.
The motion to approve the consent agenda was made by Commissioner Danny Short and seconded by Commissioner Logan. The motion carried.
Future Agenda Items were discussed.
McNutt gave an update on LHC, saying, “I continue to talk with our physician prospect and I’ve made a proposal to her. She is going to take time for her decision, but I continue to stay in contact with her and we’ll see what happens. We are beyond fortunate to have the two physicians that we have in Dr. George and Dr. Rodriguez. Not only are FPOB’s hard to find, but we have two who live here and want to be here and are so dedicated to this hospital. They’ve been pulling call and working 24/7 for almost a year now. I want them to be able to have a little bit of work/life balance and be able to get a weekend away with their families. There are a few ways to do that, one is to find a full-time physician, another solution I’ve come up with is our ER staffing company Concord, who we’ve built a really good relationship with. Those ER docs would cover the hospital and it would be a significant cost savings to us to use them.”
He added, “There is a piece of that that effects the OB side. These physicians aren’t OB physicians and we can’t find any to come in on a temporary basis. What we’ve come up with, is we will have scheduled weekends, it amounts to one weekend a month, and we will be on OB diversion. It is not permanent, but it is a way to give our two docs a break.”
With no further business to discuss, the motion to adjourn was made by Commissioner Short and seconded by Commissioner Logan. The motion carried and the meeting was adjourned at 10:32 a.m.