The Commissioners Court of Lamb County met in regular session on May 22, 2023, at the Lamb County Courthouse to discuss a 12-item agenda.
Lamb County Judge James DeLoach called the meeting to order at 10 a.m. and gave the invocation as well as led the U.S. and Texas Pledge of Allegiance.
There was nobody present for public comment.
Consent agenda items: (a) Consider and take appropriate action on minutes from previous meeting(s); There was one regular meeting on May 8, 2023, and the Judge said that the minutes 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; Jones asked the commissioners to approve bills totaling $652,152.04. (d) Consider and take appropriate action on payroll presented by Jerry Yarbrough; she asked the commissioners to approve payroll for Lamb County ending on May 5th in the amount of $154,997,74 and payroll for LHC ending on May 6th in the amount of $199,388.87. (e) Consider and take appropriate action on departmental reports; none.
The motion was made by Commissioner Danny Short and seconded by Commissioner Lee Logan to approve the consent agenda items. The motion carried unanimously.
Item four was to consider and take appropriate action on the Burn Ban.
“I know I can lift it on my own, but since we had a commissioners court meeting scheduled, I went ahead and put it on the agenda,” Judge DeLoach said. “If nobody has a problem with it, I’m going to go ahead and lift the burn ban.”
The Burn Ban was lifted and no action was taken on this item.
Item five on the agenda was to consider and take appropriate action on bury a water line in Precinct 2.
Commissioner Kent Lewis explained that he was needed to bury a water line. The motion was made by Commissioner Lewis and seconded by Commissioner Cory DeBerry to approve the action to bury a water line in Precinct 2. The motion carried unanimously.
The next item was to consider and take appropriate action to advertise for sealed bids to replace windows at the courthouse.
“I have a quote from Dennis on what it would cost to complete the replacement of the windows on the second floor and the windows on the first floor,” Judge DeLoach said. “I put it on the agenda to talk to you all about it, to see if you want to move forward on it. The intent is to use the ARPA money to do this. One of the things is, if we do this, from the last figures I had, it will put us just over $1 million left. And, I believe that we can still do what we need to do out at the Ag Barn, and this is one of the projects I did want to complete with that ARPA money.
He added, “It’s going to be about $380,000 to complete these two floors’ windows. The bids from the heating and air for the Ag Barn should be in June 5th, we’ve already authorized that. We’re going to talk about the plumbing for the Ag Barn today, but I don’t expect the plumbing to be a big money project. After that, all we’re going to be looking at is dressing up the inside of that Ag Barn.”
The motion was made by Commissioner Logan and seconded by Commissioner Short to advertise for sealed bids to replace windows at the courthouse. The motion carried unanimously.
Next on the agenda, was to consider and take appropriate action on repairing plumbing at the Ag Barn, including advertising for sealed bids if necessary.
“I just need to get with Comfort Masters or whoever; I’m going to go to Comfort Masters first, to see about how much it’s going to cost to do these repairs,” Judge DeLoach said. “If it goes over the $50,000 threshold, then we will have to advertise for sealed bids on that as well. I don’t see anyway for it to go over that. Basically, what we’re going to do if we can; if there is no failure in the plumbing inside the building, we’re going to tie on the outside of the building and put a new line to the City Sewer line.”
He added, “If there are issues inside the building, then we’re going to have to start digging up concrete. We know we’ve got problems somewhere, we just have to figure out where they are. If it’s under $50,000, we do not have to go out for bids and I am calling this a repair, I’m trying to keep as much of this as I can under the repair designation instead of being a replacement.”
The motion was made by Commissioner Logan and seconded by Commissioner Lewis to approve action on repairing plumbing at the Ag Barn, including advertising for sealed bids if necessary. The motion carried unanimously.
Item eight on the agenda was to consider and take appropriate action on changed to County Employee Policy Handbook.
“Where this is coming from, we have two vehicles up here at the courthouse that we use to travel, so I’ve asked Rickie to look into making an addition to the handbook on how we’re going to handle that. We’ve done it with one for a little over a year, but I wanted to make some changes and have a policy in place.”
District Attorney Rickie Redman, explained, “I’m proposing this draft as an amendment to the Policy Handbook that you guys adopted almost two years ago. If you guys choose to adopt this policy, or even if you want me to make a few changes, we’ll have this as a separate amendment that happens as of today. But, then, whatever you all approve, I will add it to the master handbook that Jerry uses when we on-board new employees, so it will be in there as if it is a new handbook. We’re just going to put it in there to make it more seamless, rather than adding it on the back.”
She added, “From a legal standpoint and for protection of the county, liability wise, if we’re going to start allowing, employees, department heads, elected officials, to utilize these two vehicles for county related travel business, then we need to have some more parameters in place then what is already in our handbook.”
The motion was made by Commissioner DeBerry and seconded by Commissioner Logan to approve changes to County Employee Policy Handbook. The motion carried unanimously.
Cindy Pope gave a report on Lamb Healthcare Operations.
Judge DeLoach opened Executive session at 10:46 a.m. and they returned from Executive Session at 11:03 a.m.
A motion was made by Commissioner Short and seconded by Commissioner Logan to approve appointment of Molly McCarty to the LHC Board of Managers, representing the Spade/ Fieldton Community. The motion carried unanimously.
Each elected official and department head gave brief reports on office and future agenda items and with there being no further business to discuss, a motion was made by Commissioner Logan and seconded by Commissioner Short to adjourn. The motion carried unanimously and the meeting was adjourned at 11:04 a.m.