The Terry County Commissioners Court met in a regularly scheduled meeting on Monday morning, May 14, 2024. The meeting did not take too long as the Court moved through the agenda quickly. After the invocation, pledges, public comments (there were none), approving minutes, and paying county bills the Court reviewed the monthly reports.
Beginning with the County Judges Office, Judge Tony Serbantez showed the Court there was $985 received from fees. There was a total of $9,642 in time served. Judge Serbantez also showed the Court there was 10 new cases opened and 32 cases closed.
Terry County Justice of the Peace Judge Angie Garza gave a quarterly report for the first quarter of 2024 and the monthly report for April 2024. In the quarterly report, the JP’s office shows a total of $137,259.85 in revenue. In monetary revenue, there was $128,651.30, which $18,102.03 in cash, $10,780.10 in checks, $16,271.50 in money orders, and $83,497.67 in direct deposits. There was $8,608.55 in non-monetary revenue, which $6,978.32 in jail time, $1,086.50 in indigent, $532.73 in community service, and $11.00 waived.
For the JP’s monthly report for April 2024 there was a total of $39,389.42 in revenue. $38,044.29 came in as monetary form with $6,362 in cash, $2,221 in checks, $4580.30 in money orders, and $24,880.99 in direct deposits. There was $1,345.13 non-monetary which was jail credit.
The Court moved on to item #5 to review and consider approving the rental agreement in price with First National Bank (FNB) of Wichita Falls for a 2025 Mack truck for Precinct-3. Gordon McCain, a representative of FNB was on hand to explain the lease/purchase of the new Mack truck. He explained to the Court the way the agreement is structured there will be annual payments of $27,752.95 and paying down to a guaranteed trade-back. “Bruckner Truck has a governmental program that allocates a certain amount of guaranteed buy-back… kinda like a lot of heavy equipment has a buy-back, associated with it which makes the cost more affordable for new equipment that is covered under warranty.” said McCain. The Court approved the agreement.
Next, the Court reviewed and considered approving the deeding of public parks property to the City of Brownfield per the interlocal agreement approved back in 2014 by the City Council and commissioner court. The City of Brownfield was awarded a Texas Park and Wildlife match grant for $750K in January 2024 (related story), and to receive the grant, the city must own the property. After the grant was awarded, the city began getting the paperwork together and realized some of the property is still deeded to Terry County. Brownfield City Manager Jeff Davis came to the Court on behalf of the City Council to ask the Court to approve moving the deeded property owned by the county to the city. The Court unanimously approved the item.
Item seven was next, and it was a formal request from the Texas Comptroller’s Office to receive allocated portions of “Unclaimed Capital Credits for Counties (UCCC)”. UCCCs are when electric cooperatives that have lost contact with a previous customer sometimes report capital credits to the Comptroller’s office as unclaimed property. Texas law allows counties to claim a portion of unclaimed capital credits originating from their county and use them for specific programs. The Court approved the request. According to County Judge Tony Serbantez, this is a request only, the county does not know if there is any monetary allotment available.
The Court moved to item eight to discuss and consider using Bolinger, Segars, Gilbert & Moss, LLP to conduct an audit on the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds as of December 31, 2023. Since the county used $700K of the allocated funds, there will need to be a “single audit” from an outside independent auditor. The Court approved the measure.
The Court also approved an interlocal governmental contract for the “Application Development and Administration Services Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Local Parks Grant Program and South Plains Association of Governments (SPAG).” The approval of this agreement allows SPAG to do the preparation work on grants. The Court seem to imply that a grant will eventually be given to the county for the Enoch Party House and the property surrounding it.
The final item of business was for the Court to approve moving the Monday, May 27, 2024 meeting to Tuesday, May 28, 2024, due to the observance of Memorial Day.
