The Brownfield City Council met in a regular scheduled meeting Thursday morning Nov. 16, 2023, with a light agenda. After the preliminary opening, invocation, pledges, and public comments (there were none) the Council began its work. The first two items were to approve the monthly finance report and investment report. Under the City Charter, the Director of Finance which is the City Manager Jeff Davis shall submit to the Council a monthly statement of all receipts and disbursements in sufficient detail to show the exact financial condition of the City. According to Davis, the 2023-2024 fiscal budget is set at $22,088,530.00. For the first month of the fiscal year, $1,501,456.08 of revenue came in and the city has $1,558,312.84 in expenditures. That is a deficit of $56,856.76. The investment summary shows the City had accrued $31,549.06 in interest and has 69% more funds on hand than what is required by law.
The Council moved on to the next item of business which was to hear from City Inspector Israel Limon on his quarterly and yearly reports. According to Limon, there were 46 permits issued from July 1, 2023, through September 30, 2023. 25 of the 46 permits were for residential roofs, one for a new residence, two for mobile homes, one for a commercial addition, seven for carports, three for storage buildings, one for a patio, one for a porch, three for signs, and two for solar panels. For the 2022-2023 fiscal year, Limon showed he issued 506 permits. 403 of those permits were for residential roofs, one new residence, one new commercial building, six mobile homes, seven residence additions, nine commercial additions, 14 carports, two garages, 15 storage buildings, one patio, five porches, two fences, three driveways, one curb cut, three swimming pools, 18 commercial roofs, seven signs, four demolitions, and four solar panels.
In addition to the building permits, Limon issued a total of 259 electric/mechanical/plumbing permits for the 2022-2023 fiscal year. Limon showed 88 electrical permits, eight mechanical permits, and 163 plumbing permits issued for the year. Quarterly from July 1, 2023, through September 30, 2023, Limon showed 21 electrical permits issued, zero mechanical permits, and 46 plumbing permits issued.
Next, the Council discussed and considered hiring a human resources director. The prior Council, (2021-2022) made a recommendation to City Manager Jeff Davis that there needs to be a human resources director. During the 2023-2024 budget sessions, the current Council added into the 2023-2024 fiscal budget for a human resources director. Davis presented Strategic Government Resources to the Council and has offered 2 formal proposals to recruit the position of human resources director. One proposal is $25,000 and the other is $11,000.
Davis began the discussion by letting the Council know that one of the recommendations for this new position was that the city hire an outside firm. “One of the recommendations was we use an outside firm to do the recruitment for that position and that’s what this proposal is, there’s nothing… we’re entitled to anything here, I just kinda wanted some thoughts and ideas and discussions for this position and how y’all want to handle going forward with it,” said Davis.
Davis went on to say, “There’s two proposals in here… one’s about $25,000, and the other is about $11,000. The $25,000 is a full recruitment, similar to what we did with the police and fire chiefs… the $11,000 proposal is just the recruitment and they turn it over to us to decide who’s it going to be, so this is kinda where we’re at with this. I just wanted some discussions and thoughts.”
Councilman Mark Williams (Dist. 5), said, “The recruitments that I’ve dealt with have been 10% of the first year’s salary, so those numbers seem a little bit high… but it’s a different environment.”
After about eight seconds of silence, Davis spoke up and said, “Guys please somebody tell me how, which way y’all are headed… I mean if y’all wanna go with the bigger proposal of $25,000, I think we save that money in salary by not having that position filled until… I mean its gonna be several weeks before they fill this position. Through the process, we already got the first month already… of that salary. I think we can make it fit in there somewhere but it’s kinda up to y’all how y’all want to handle it.”
Councilwoman Kelli Mendez said, “I feel like for all the employees of the city it’s worth the money to go through with the bigger one ($25,000 proposal) to get the right person to fill the shoes for every citizen and it will benefit everybody in Brownfield, and that is thoughts and recommendations on this.”
Mayor Pro Tem Leon Pope then asked City Attorney Matt Wade, “You agree with that Matt?”
Wade said, “This is purley a policy matter, but my experience has been that the more time and investment that you can have in the hiring process, the better. Because you want to make sure you get the right person and is always been a good investment to make sure you go through the process to get the right person. I would echo our councilmembers’s (Mendez) comments that will be money well spent.”
Williams then asked Davis, “Do you see a difference in the scope that marks the difference in price?”
Davis responded, “Oh absolutely, because they are gonna comeback and say “ok, these three candidates… just similar to what we did with the police (chief), you have so many candidates. We’re gonna eliminate those based on experience or whatever… we’re gonna go through a process. There’s a lot of things they’re aware of, as if you go with the cheaper option they are basically just going to take applications which we could do in-house. But if you’re going to go with a full-scope… I think they guarantee that position for 18 months that that person will fill that position for 18 months and if n ot they’ll do it again.”
Councilman Jimmy Garza asked, “But we have to pay expenses ?”
Davis said, “We have to pay… not for their recruiting expenses, but we do have to pay for like the online interviews.”
Pope chimed in and said, “Also we’re looking at four months… nearly four months for this to take place from beginning to end.”
Garza said, “I don’t think we need to rush it… we don’t have one yet. I see the information. here, I just don’t know which way to go in this one right now based on the information we have.”
Pope asked Garza, “You mean the lower or the higher price?”
Garza replied, “Yes… the information and the cost of it.”
Williams said, “Sounds like we go with the higher cost or we do it ourselves?”
Davis then spoke, “My recommendation to the Council is we go with the higher plan. Like I’ve said, we’ve saved that salary… instead of paying that salary for these next four months, we use that salary to help pay for the recruiting of that position.”
Garza asked Davis, “Jeff once this comes back, those who are weeded out, who makes the determination?”
Davis said, “The official determination is me, but I’m gonna do it alongside some committee members. I don’t know who’s gonna be on the committees yet, but we will try to pick that committee as we go through the process. Last time we had an administration committee, we had an employee committee and I think we had some community members involved and I think there were some council members involved on some of those committees as well. We have different committees to try to help do the interview process… there’s a lot of people involved. Their gonna make recommendations to me, the committees are, and I’m gonna make a recommendation to the Council, then y’all have to approve that.”
Garza then asked Davis, “But each time they start weeding people out… say they have 30, will the council know those?”
Davis responded by saying, “Y’all will get the total numbers and everything when we get to the end of process.”
Garza said, “No… not at the end, but as the process goes. Like if they weed it down to 10… is that the waty the process works?”
Davis then replied, “Normally the process… we don’t want the… we don’t need the Council involved in the interview process unless you are a part of one of the committees. But we need the Council involved in the final selection at the end whenever there’s gonna be like three or four candidates I’ll probably come back to the Council and say Council, these are the four candidates we have… this is my recommendation, which y’all’s thoughts. I mean y’all have a pamphlet and a book.”
Pope then told Davis, “I think I would like to see, confidentially, I’d like to see what the salary and benefits are for this person.”
Davis said, OK. I can get you that… that’s actually budgeted already.”
Mendez made the motion to approve the higher proposal with Councilman JC Tijerina seconding the motion, and all members voting yes.
The final item of business was to pass a resolution amending the fiscal year 2023-2024 budget for the construction of the “Type I and Type IV” landfill cells. During the 2022-2023 fiscal year after sealed bids were accepted the council elected to move forward with the construction of both a Type I landfill cell and a Type IV landfill cell using reserve funds to partially fund the project. The Type I cell is near grade and payment applications are being processed. This resolution transfers reserve funds to the pooled cash account for payments on the project. The Council approved the resolution to move funds.
All Council members were present with the exception of Mayor Tom Hess. Next Council meeting is slated for Thursday, December 7, 2023 at 7:30 a.m. in the Council Chambers at City Hall
