The Commissioner’s Court of Lamb County held their regular meeting on Tuesday, September 8th, to discuss a nine-item agenda.
The meeting was called to order by Lamb County Judge James DeLoach at 10 a.m., who also gave the invocation. During the public comment portion of the meeting, Lamb County Treasurer, Jerry Yarbrough asked a question about item four on the agenda.
Consent Agenda: a) Consider and take appropriate action on minutes from previous meeting(s); Judge DeLoach stated that there were two sets of minutes and both appeared to be 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 $372,774.39. d) Consider and take appropriate action on payroll; none. e) Consider and take appropriate action on departmental reports; packets. 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 to consider and take appropriate action on Lamb County’s Retiring Employees Insurance for 2027.
“I’ve kept it the same as we’ve always done,” Yarbrough said. “If you’re going on Medicare and you have to get a supplement, this is a supplement to Medicare. It’s no cost to us, it’s just something we offer based off of our plan. It did go up $17.60, but you have the option to get this or go wherever you want to. It’s a supplement and the RX supplement.”
She added, “It’s really good insurance, but it is pricey. This is something the county has done since long before I came along. We don’t currently have anybody on this right now.”
The motion to approve Lamb County’s Retiring Employees Insurance for 2027 was made by Commissiner Cory DeBerry and seconded by Commissioner Kent Lewis. The motion carried.
The next order of business was to consider and take appropriate action on Contract with Warren Computers.
“I just have a few questions and concerns,” District Attorney Rickie Redman stated. “My job is to plan for the worst and if something goes bad, we need to limit our financial liability as well as our asset liability.”
Judge DeLoach added, “We still have one or two more meetings, so lets take no action on this for now.”
No action was taken. The next items on the agenda was Budget Work Session. “We need to say yes or no on the $1,500 one time payment for county employees around the first of December,” Judge DeLoach stated. “The proposal when I put it out there was for employees only, it does not include Elected Officials. I’m not trying to exclude anybody, but with it coming in as late as it did, I don’t want to have to go back in and redo elected officials salaries.”
He added, “Full time employees will get the $1,500 around the first of December, part-time employees will get half of that.”
Item seven on the agenda was consider and take appropriate action on Elected Officials Salaries.
“The proposal had come up for a few more salary supplements and that has brought on a lot more talk. It’s up to y’all, but I’m ready to move on with this. The issue that we had when I made the proposal, is eventually within the next year or two these two issues are going to be solved and those salary supplements are going to go away. That’s the way the proposal was sated and that’s the way I think it should be.”
Commissioner Logan made a motion to keep the salaries for the two that we had talked about the same, until we find a solution for those offices. It was seconded by Judge DeLoach. The motion failed 3-2.
After some more discussion, a motion was made by Commissioner Logan to reconsider the original motion and seconded by Judge DeLoach. The motion carried.
A motion to approve the original motion to keep the salaries for the two that we had talked about the same, until we find a solution for those offices was made by Commissioner Logan and seconded by Judge DeLoach. The motion passed 4-1.
Future agenda items were discussed.
The next commissioners court meeting will be Sept. 15th at 2 p.m. and the Budget will be adopted and the tax rate will be set at the Sept. 28th meeting, which will be at 10 a.m.
“We received our official accreditation for our second sleep lab location,” LHC CEO Mike McNutt stated. “We’ve got our Health Fair on Saturday at 9 a.m. at the Ag Center.” With no further business to discuss a motion to adjourn was made by Commissioner Cory DeBerry and seconded by Commissioner Logan. The motion carried and the meeting was adjourned at 10:49 a.m.