Commissioners Court - Regular Meeting

I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible.

Thank you. Judge, one moment. I would just say this is a presentation that needs to be done. Okay. If not, I'll place it on the next agenda. It's already on there.

Oh, thank you. I just want to thank the Homeless Coalition and the other local organizations that work really hard to bring awareness to help prevent and stop homelessness. You know, I really appreciate the love, the dedication, and attention you all put to this very important matter. So thank you all for the work.

I just want to thank the coalition too for all the hard work that y'all do on a daily basis. It's definitely a passion, you know, that you are concerned about or you wouldn't do it and I definitely understand. I participated in that simulation last year and it was very eye opening to navigate or not being able to navigate resources, right? And so hopefully I can participate in that again. But I do want to thank all the work that all the organizations do around homelessness. Commissioner Hammer.

A lot of what y'all do, you don't get compensated for, and a lot of it's volunteer work, and a lot of it's just strictly from the heart. And I appreciate all the things that y'all do for, again, one of the most vulnerable populations that we have in our area. Stack the Mac is probably the cutest thing I've ever heard for a volunteer drive or a food drive But I really do appreciate you guys and what you do every single day, and it doesn't go unnoticed Commissioner Smith

I think that our community probably doesn't understand the just breadth of the folks who work with y'all's organization and how many organizations here in our community participate in it throughout the year. We always try to promote the point-in-time census, and y'all have done a phenomenal job with that. It breaks my heart when people think that's the one thing y'all do each year, because we know so much better. And it's not a problem that is just around once a year. We don't do this proclamation once a year just to recognize that it's a problem now. I mean, it truly is a growing issue in our

Well, Lisa, I want to thank you for your amazing leadership and the work that you and all the volunteers do. I know that you couldn't do it without the volunteers, and so we really appreciate them. And just for ensuring that our families have the food and other necessities that they need, and the food bank is certainly a vital part of our community, and you all do such a wonderful job, and really appreciate you. Thank you.

Well, thank you, Lisa and the team, I know, and the board members. There are some of them that are here. We all wouldn't do this if we didn't care about this issue. I mean, food insecurity is a big one. And I encourage anyone to go volunteer at the food bank, go participate in the distribution, because if you really want to know what's going on in your community, go to those, and you will see. And you will hear the stories of the struggle. And it really pulls at your heartstrings. And so the work that you all do is just phenomenal. And I'm so proud to be a board member. for the food bank, but

Those 90s reference went right over my head, so I didn't get it either. I'm sorry. But yes, to echo what Commissioner Cohen said, it is so important that y'all build these relationships too with HEB, the local areas, so you can and they can help you get food to those that need it. But go show up, go volunteer. I don't know if you have a volunteer process. I just showed up and I realized maybe I had to go through a process. So maybe don't just show up, but definitely go volunteer because y'all need the volunteers and you guys do great work. So thank you so much.

Well, and I want to give you kudos for the relationships that you build with those other food pantries and those other entities that help distribute throughout the county. We have some pretty far-flung ones out there and y'all have always been there to help support them I I really do appreciate that especially on the far west side There is one thing that I'd be remiss if I didn't say this, you know, I sincerely appreciate COMMISSIONER COHEN SERVING ON THE BOARD AND REPRESENTING THE COUNTY, BUT THERE'S ONE ACTION OUR FORMER BOARD MEMBER WOULD TAKE EVERY YEAR THAT SHE HAS YET TO DO, AND I'M LOOK

Thank you. I think Izzy's going to give some remarks.

Well, thank you all for being here for this. I think this court has always put mental health on the forefront of our initiatives, and we've always been so happy to support everything that everyone does. I know we have a lot of young people that struggle with depression and the initiative that our health department has launched to help get in front and just provide basic resources, providing the resource guide that can help people point to that. I mean, the work has just been phenomenal, not just from our health department, but everyone else who is involved. And I look forward to participating

Thank you, Judge. Thank you so much for sharing your story. That was wonderful. I think we probably, many of us have been touched by suicide. I lost a very close cousin to suicide, and so I can understand the devastation, but I really appreciate all the work that is being done by so many to bring awareness and prevention to this horrible issue. It's staggering to me to read the proclamation and see that It's the second leading cause of death between the ages of 10 to 14. Oh, my goodness, that's incredible. And also between the ages of 15 to 24. And I do want to thank our health department also

Thank you so much for getting up and speaking. I don't know how y'all do this where you guys don't cry on the dais. I try really hard. But this one is pretty personal to me too. I know last year I shared a little bit I had from my mother attempting multiple times to a close friend that we were supposed to go to college together right before we got to college, taking her life. It's something that definitely hurts the people that they leave behind, but it's something also where if we continue to support and we foster a community where people feel like they can open up and they can talk about it

I'VE CARRIED THIS RESOLUTION THE LAST SEVERAL YEARS. Suicide's pretty personal. My family has suffered. And I say that in a way because, I say that because those who are left behind, they suffer. And I've watched my family go through those things. And it's always hard for me whenever we do this resolution because there's been many years when we've done it and I've sat here and I know six people in this room, seven people in this room who have suffered because of the loss from a suicide. And whenever COVID hit, one of the first things that I looked at, I had served on the Tripping Springs Educa

As you know, you and I were on the first Core 4 partnership. We were the two representatives from the county. I'm glad we have professionals in there now.

I'm fine with voting on it today. We have a posted workshop, so.

And Judge, I know that you wanted to see something without a tax increase. So what I just handed you is a no tax increase.

I do have to continue to preface. I think we should really review the salary study in its entirety. Again, I appreciate the work that our HR department put into this. And I'm not discrediting that work. I just think that some of these positions, especially when you look at the operational budgets for some of these departments and coming out of their operational departments to try to make these numbers work, but then paying people that are making well over $150,000, a 20%, 23%, 25% increase. I can't go to my constituency and look at them in the face and say, we robbed Peter to pay Paul. We rais

And yeah, I think that there's a lot of different ways to look at it. I mean, again, whatever budget you adopt, I'm going to do the best work within that budget. But there's just a heartache on some of these increases that I can't be able to talk to my constituency and say that that is something that I would ever support.

Well, Judge, I'm certainly willing to look at something. I just don't know how, I mean, Eric, I don't know how long it's going to take you to you know, look at something like this. I mean, I, you know, we, I said at the last meeting that, you know, there are so many that we're looking at that aren't getting paid a livable wage and, you know, we needed to address that. And I did vote for the entire pay increase, but I just, It's not too late. It's just that this is late in coming also. I mean, we're so compressed. I'm not saying again that I'm not open to looking at it, but Eric needs time to r

Well, we didn't get the market study data until like a little bit over two weeks ago.

I mean, yeah, I was like, it took me a long time. I went through everything from the city positions. And that's another thing too, is it's hard to compare some of these because you look at the city and you compare some of those positions. If we're going to be compared to city council, then our pay would look different too, you know? So how do you pick and choose? Also elected officials, they have the autonomy to kind of run their department how they want to, right? So I don't know if job, descriptions and positions are 100% comparable. I mean, they're elected for a reason.

Yeah, I think we just did the best that we could with whatever Eric could find in the market to do that. But if we want to give him some time to kind of take a look at some of those salaries. Now, are you saying that, like there were $100,000, that we still give them something, but that we limit it? and look at the other.

Limit the range. And that's why I said a dollar amount, just because a dollar amount, you could still give someone making $80,000 15%, because it might not hit that dollar amount that you say, right? That's why I think a dollar amount would make more sense than a percentage, because if you limit a percentage, people that are making $40,000 won't ever be able to hit that, right? Absolutely. So that's just my, it's just I've had a heartache with looking at these numbers and

I mean, so have any calculations been done to kind of look at what groups of individuals and dollar amounts and percentages or whatever

I think it's closed-minded to think that we can't take care of the people on the bottom and limit in some way, shape, or form the people on the top. I think that it's something that we can have. It's doable. I do I hear what you're saying from a compression standpoint That's why if you put a cap on it it might make more sense because people are still getting an increase They just caps at a certain point, but I mean we're affecting and I know department heads are not going to come up here and say No, my employees shouldn't be making more at the end of the day again if I was Bill Gates everyone

I mean, and we're doing a phased-in approach. We've got to figure out where we're going to get an additional $2 million down the road for this approach. And are we going to raise taxes? Because we're still coming out of reserves. I'm going to keep stressing the importance. I do think it's important. I think financial sustainability is important. And I also think that I don't want to get into a spot like the ISDs have gotten into where they're having to cut people because they don't have the sustainability to be able to support them. Exactly.

We got a 6% increase to everyone last year. I mean, 6% would be I mean, from the private sector, that's not, the private sector, they get an average of 3.5% across the board.

Well, Commissioner, can you go down the list and maybe help us better understand what you're looking at? I mean, you have exchange addition, reduction addition, addition. Can you just kind of go down?

Yeah, the main, so a lot of the things we've already kind of gone over from the sheriff's office, reducing six of the correction officers in exchange for the things that they wanted, like their three SROs, a sheriff's office HR pay grade or regrade. So that's going to be for Sandra's position. JP21 clerk, and these are all starting on different dates, just so the numbers could work. But we have JP21 clerk starting on 4-1. That is due to the numbers that were provided by all of the JPs, and Judge Beth Smith definitely has one of the highest workloads. And then you got the Constable Precinct 2 d

And so the JP clerk, so you're removing two of the clerks? Is that what you're advocating for?

This is just, yes, adding in one clerk for Judge Smith. And again, at the end of the day, this is how you make the numbers work for not a tax increase. Not saying it's the most ideal. Nothing's going to be most ideal because the most ideal thing would be us having an unlimited amount of money.

So it's also removing then all the other positions that we talked about, I guess, right?

Yes, this is no tax increase. This is how it is.

And this still dips into the reserves the same amount. Like this is, I mean, this is bare bones, right? We don't have, and property values aren't going up. We might not have the ability to come up with another $2 million for these salary increases. So I get that you might not be able to support this completely, but I mean, having some type of wiggle room to try to come down so we are more sustainable next year, I think is extremely important to look at.

There are a number of things in here that we've already voted to accept. The collective bargaining, we know we've reserved funding for that. The removal of the officers, the school resource officers, the sheriff's office HR regrade, JP21, Constable Precinct 2 and 4, we made an agreement that we would look at pulling those in. These all have an April start date, so they would fall after and could fall into the proposed review that we all voted for last week. Um, auto theft detective has already been approved. The only, the only real question as far as the act, well, that's what I started to say

We have two more courts before we're solidified on everything. We have two more weeks. With getting the salary, all the market salary, and some of these department heads haven't even gotten all the salary data. And I think that that's extremely important. They might have gotten it for their own department, but they haven't gotten the justification on how those numbers came to. So, I mean, I have department heads asking, I mean, they've got a operational budget that has been cut. and to make room for these types of things. I mean, I think we can't hurt a department operationally because we're t

Well, we have both someone from the Sheriff's Department and someone from elections here. Yep. So if we want to do axon first, is there anything additionally that we want to discuss relative to the axon before we vote on it?

So there's an agenda item also on that. So yeah, I would say let's open it. It's okay with you, Judge. I mean, it was an item that we discussed in detail that we wanted to ensure that if we were to approve it, that this was in place. But if it's not.

I was just going to ask, given that we have an item in front of us, what specific was left out?

What's the number of the agenda item? I read it, but I don't see it real quick.

I'm not I'm not I'm sure I'm understanding Okay, can we hear the language judge? Maybe and then chase can give us an opinion on whether or not we can add that to the item Sure, why don't you for this conversation, please open G 18 G 18 acknowledgement of Hayes County Sheriff's Office

So what change would you suggest to it currently?

It's something that's not tied to Axion.

So I would say this letter from the sheriff's office I mean, if there's any action, literally, this is just our expectations within this individual contractor outlined in this letter. It's very specific. I do agree with you. A general consensus, I think we can reach that. But on this specific item, I think it's very clear exactly what they're doing. And so I would go ahead and say we should probably vote to accept this letter. whether we move forward with the contract or not. We need to do that, and then we can look at the budget item.

Please call the roll. Just to be clear, this is... Axon only. Well, just to be clear, we're calling the roll on G18, which is the acceptance of the letter from the Sheriff's Department.

So what I would like to do is move for inclusion in the budget for the Axion low P&T or low payment option for the first year payment of a 10-year contract.

Are we, quick question, second, I'll second that, but are we doing the low PMT that they gave us, or are we doing the low PMT from what was presented last week, which was, I believe, over $100,000, I think it was like $170,000.

Understood. Thanks. And the rate that we passed, the max rate that we passed last week would more than accommodate that.

I was just going to ask also, I mean, and we talked about this last time, and Chief, you may want to come up if you don't mind, Judge, if he comes up. You bet.

And I guess my specific question on this particular contract, you know, we talked about and are talking about mass surveillance, and I just want to make certain that if you can remind us whether you believe that this is mass surveillance because, you know, this has become an issue, and so I just want to make it clear what your thoughts are on that.

So are you saying that you're only using this information within Hays County Sheriff's Department only? Correct. Okay. Not sharing it with anyone else? No.

Correct, yeah. And I was just going to say whether that is going to cost us any additional funding or not, which this is not supposed to. And I think it's what you said, Chief, early last week and why the letter was written.

I just want to clarify, y'all do not have a contract in front of you today. I move for inclusion in the budget. Thank you for that clarification.

Okay, so then that contract would then come to court for our review before approving.

All right. And I think that... Our elections administrator, I'm sorry, I'm trying to find my notes here. Thank you, Chief. She gave us some information additional today. And if we would, I would like to open up another additional agenda item to have a discussion. For K-1? That's hers. I believe it is K-1, yes.

Do we know what that budget impact is? Just like how much? For example, do we know how many hours we had last year that we had to pay for? Scott?

Okay, that's what I was wondering. So the 50% that the county pays, so forgive my ignorance here, but would that mean if we raised it $2, we would pay $1?

Okay. To break it down, it would be a dollar.

I'm not asking to raise all early voting clerks at work. No, no, no. I'm thinking it's got to be less than a few. It can't be more than a few thousand dollars is what I'm thinking. Okay.

I would think that would be less than $5,000. Per person? Per week? I mean, I'm just trying to do numbers. How many weeks?

Closer to three. Just for clarification, I know you ran some numbers and I saw you jot them down while we were talking. We currently charge $175,000. Is that correct? Correct. And when was the last time we changed this?

I'm 100% fine with doing this, but I know that you jotted down some numbers as far as the off-year election in 2025 and I think the May election. Could you share those with us as far as how much?

I WOULD MOVE TO ACCEPT THE NEW RATE SCHEDULE AS PRESENTED AND BACK UP FOR ITEM K-1.

I THOUGHT WE OPENED IT. Motion is second, and it's already backed up, so it's automatic. I just want to make sure.

No, I don't believe so. I mean, we talked last week in court saying that we wanted to see an increase in this that hadn't been done for a very long time, so I'm good with the judge.

I would say that I fully do think this is something that we need. Again, I made that very clear, my support on this. Unfortunately, I just can't support it because I'm not going to support a tax rate increase, and I've tried time and time again to work this in the budget, but I think it is important, and I do support the cause.

Please call the roll. We're just voting on the rate sheet. Okay.

I got you. Yes. Now I'd like to talk about the equipment. So again, the rate that we passed last week, the maximum allowable rate includes enough cap under the cap for funding for the first year funding for the equipment. I think we've kind of talked this item to death. I, again, want to make the case or want to reiterate that this election equipment is not something that you want to purchase the year of a presidential election. We are at a point where we're also, when we purchased the equipment that we had, and I think you've heard Ms. Doinoff say this, it may have been new to us, but it wasn

I mean, I honestly, I do see the importance of keeping our election equipment up to date, and we do care about our elections, and we want to make sure that that office has what they need to be successful, because this is a forward-facing service to our voters and our constituency, and I believe that we should make this investment. I also just want to mention, because of the hospital district petition that a feasibility study needs to be added to the budget somehow. Because if that means we have to eliminate something else to make that work, it's just that we have to have that now. And so I don

Okay. While we're still on this specific item, I would like to move to...

And my comments from what we just voted on still stand on this one.

Yeah, no, I mean, I'd say that I think that it's an important thing to do, keeping up to date on our elections equipment. I support that initiative, and I've talked at length about it. I've tried to work in the budget as much as I possibly could for a no tax increase. That's I DON'T SUPPORT A TAX RATE INCREASE, SO I JUST CAN'T SUPPORT ANYTHING THAT FALLS OUTSIDE OF THAT TAX RATE INCREASE, UNFORTUNATELY.

And I do think that that's what reserves is for, for expenditures like this. I just can't foresee. I mean, I guess we're at 3 point, what is it, 3 point, say it again?

I mean, we're just dwindling that down, though. I mean, what were we at three years ago in terms of the amount of months that we had built up in reserves?

And if we do the 3.48, is that what it is? It's not what it is, right? 3.27. 3.27. If we do that 3.27, then we'll be at four months, correct?

So if we were to increase that amount that we're taking out of reserves, we're falling below the four months. That is correct. Yeah, I can.

Additional reason why we shouldn't do it in my opinion, but that's just the vote So if there's nothing else this motion is again, but no good clarify that When he's giving us another option of where to pay for it instead of the tax rate reserves the correct So the but the cap that we passed last week and it has enough room under the cap for this for the specific number of the nine hundred and

I want to make sure we got elected. Oh, we didn't. We opened the discussion, and then we had a second on the other one. So I move for the inclusion at the three-year rate of new elections equipment.

I guess so. Anything else? There's engineering firms here.

NO. I THINK WE'RE REDUCING. OH, NO. WHERE ARE WE?

WE ON THREE? FIVE. FIVE. OH, I'M SORRY. OH, WE HAD SELECTED THEM. THIS IS THE NEGOTIATED CONTRACT.

Please call the roll. Judge, I would like to note this is within our road bond and within the COs. There's a portion of funding for Fitzhugh Road that we applied for additional grant funding on safety improvements. If you remember, a portion of the funding was not for design. It was for immediate safety improvements. And we were awarded this grant specifically to help us with that.

And Judge, this is a safety device that will access threats at active scenes. There's no match, but we have a little bit of a shortfall of $7,116. And Scott, I'm not sure where that's coming from.

And, Judge, this is actually for the purchase of a one 12-month software license for that notebook. But in the agenda item, it says to purchase a notebook. But as I was reading the summary...

October last year, we approved a grant for $300,000. This is the agreement between Great Springs Project and Hayes County. They are the ones that are going to be completing the match of $75,000, and they're doing so with labor and other sorts of things, and this just outlines that agreement.

Well, my question is, how did it go up 21%?

I don't have a problem. I'm just wondering how it went up 21%.

And judge, this is for the installation of cameras for safety purposes.

Are we okay to open it? K-14, discussion and possible action to pre-qualify all respondents who scored 70 or above

Just for clarification, the list and backup, was that supposed to be only firms that received the 70%, or was that all scores?

I appreciate that. In the past, we've only listed the firms that have met that minimum standard. That's the reason I was asking. Please call the roll.

I'm recusing myself from this vote due to my stepfather working at Quigley.

Perfect, and thank you. I do have one question related to this, and this is a question not for you necessarily, but for the Civil Division. If there were to be a hospital district created, would they assume the cost for cremation services?