The Commissioners of Lamb County held their regular meeting on Monday, August 17th, in the Commissioner ’s Court Room at the Lamb County Courthouse, where a 10item agenda was discussed.
Lamb County Judge James DeLoach called the meeting to order 9:01 a.m. and the invocation was given by Lamb County District Judge Scott Say.
Nobody was present to speak during the public comment portion of the meeting.
Consent Agenda: a) Consider and take appropriate action on minutes from previous meeting(s); there were no minutes from previous meetings. 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 $525,582.96. d) Consider and take appropriate action on payroll; Lamb County Treasurer, Jerry Yarbrough, requested that the Commissioners approved Payroll for Lamb County ending on August 7th in the amount of $176,486.12 and for LHC ending on August 8th in the amount of $275,741.34. e) Consider and take appropriate action on departmental reports; Packets. f) Consider and take appropriate action Donations; there were none. g) Consider and take appropriate action on Tax Deed. There were none.
The motion to approve the Consent Agenda as presented was made by Commissioner Danny Short and seconded by Commissioner Lee Logan. The motion carried unanimously.
Item four on the agenda was consider and take appropriate action on burn ban.
“We released the Burn Ban a few weeks ago and I think it may be time to put it back in,” Judge DeLoach stated. “If something does happen and we don’t have that burn ban in place, it is grant issues, FEMA, if we happen to have a problem. We’ve been pretty lenient on people burning their trash. I’ve got two or three around that are actually set up to burn their trash.”
After a brief discussion, Commissioner Kent Lewis made a motion to reinstate the burn ban and it was seconded by Cory DeBerry. The motion carried unanimously.
The next item on the agenda was to consider and take appropriate action on purchase and finance of a Motor Grader in Precinct 4.
“I’ve got a motor grader that the motor went out in,” he explained. “They fixed that motor, but I’m going to trade two in for one and go back to three guys to help my budget out, so I didn’t see any sense of paying the extra $33,000 on that machine where the motor is out of, I might as well put it towards a new trade. The trade difference between two on one will be $64,000, and will probably finance that for six months with First United Bank and then pay it off.”
The motion to approve trading two motor graders in Precinct 4 towards the purchase and finance of a Motor Grader for Precinct 4 was made by Commissioner Logan and seconded by Commissioner Short. The motion carried unanimously.
Pursuant to Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code, the Commissioners went into executive session at 9:10 a.m. and returned from executive session at 9:21 a.m.
The next order of business was to consider and take appropriate action on the IT Security Contract that was discussed in Executive session. The motion to approve the IT Security Contract was made by Commissioner Logan and seconded by Commissioner Short. The motion carried unanimously.
Future agenda items were discussed: The next Commissioner’s Court meeting, scheduled for August 24th has been moved to 1:30 p.m.
August 31st is the date that has been set to approve the tax rate and budget.
LHC CEO Mike McNutt gave a brief updated on the hospital, stating, “ W e ’ v e had a slight uptick in volume this month, nothing huge, so hopefully that will continue. We had our accreditation meeting for our second sleep lab location last week. That went really well and got everything turned in and are just waiting on our certificate and be happy to announce that when it happens.”
He added, “We’ve heard a little bit of feedback on the Rural Transformation Funds Grant. I like to think of it as we made the first cut. They’ve asked for more information. I feel like that is a very encouraging sign, we’re getting that stuff submitted and turned back in, and we’ll hopefully have a final decision soon.”
With no further business to discuss, Commissioner Logan made a motion to adjourn and it was seconded by Commissioner Short. The motion carried and the meeting was adjourned at 9:52 a.m.