The Brown County Commissioners Court held its regular weekly meeting today, but it was more than an ordinary meeting.

With the start of a lengthy regular agenda, and finishing up with a public hearing & adoption of the 2009-2010 budget, several people walked away from the court not getting what they were seeking.

The most dramatic moment of the commissioners meeting was Brownwood resident Joe Cooksey coming forward during the public hearing for the proposed budget with a stack of papers and folders.

Cooksey had several concerns that he expressed to the commissioners.

Starting off Cooksey asked, “If it’s not on the agenda, how can we lawfully have a public hearing?”

County Judge Ray West responded, “Okay, we are going to proceed, if you have any specific questions about the budget you are welcome to ask them.”

The meeting got a little more heated as Cooksey said, “Lets talk about in regards to the budget, trustworthiness of financial records that have been placed in the county clerks office.”

West quickly responded, “No, we are not going to discuss anything about trustworthiness of the county records.  We are going to discuss the adoption of the budget. If there are any specific questions about a line item in the budget, you may ask that question.”

Cooksey replied, “I am protected by the first amendment of the United States Constitution, in a public hearing, I am allowed to make my comments…”

West said, “Mr. Cooksey, I will have you removed from this courtroom if you insist on babbling about something not relevant to the adoption of the budget … This is not a bully pulpit for you to come in here and complain about county government.”

Things calmed down a bit and Mr. Cooksey presented several questions regarding record keeping issues with past budgets as compared to county audit numbers, disclosure of salaries of some elected officials, procedure in setting of salaries, and money set aside in a donation fund through the county attorney’s office.

After about a 45 minute presentation and discussion of these issues, Judge West said regarding the donation fund, “The only thing that I am concerned with that you have said that I will check into is the limitation on the amount of the donation.  We need to check into that, and we will.”

This was referring to pre-trial intervention programs that can be used in criminal court cases that according to Cooksey have a statutory limit of $500.  Cooksey said that he has records showing defendants paying as much as $750 in these programs.

Although this was the most intense portion of the commissioner’s meeting there were several people who made requests to the commissioners that went without action.

The first of whom was Brown County Constable David Hefner who was requesting a budget amendment for an additional $1500 for the fiscal year for unforeseen expenses.  Hefner stated that he needed the money due to increased workload in his precinct on serving papers.  Hefner was also asked about the expenses regarding the operation of the office that he has for the Constable position.

After discussion, Judge West asked if a commissioner had a motion to make and after a short time of silence, West recognized that no one made a motion and the court moved on to the next agenda item.

Suzy Young for the Brown County elections office stepped forward to let the commissioners know that since Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson is possibly going to run for Governor, she may resign her Senate seat which would force a special election in May.  If this happens, it would cost the county more than $12,000 to run the election.  Commissioners wanted to wait until the time came to make that decision and do a budget amendment if needed.

Young also requested from the commissioners that she and the worker in her office be given a raise before they adopted their new budget later in the day.  She said that she wanted the court to consider doing this since commissioners were considering giving raises to some of the court room workers. Young also explained the heavy work load and responsibility that the election office has.

At the end of the meeting, after all requests and public hearings were compete, Judge Ray West said that they had two proposed budgets before them.  The budgets were for the same total amount, but the only difference was that one budget offered a raise to three courtroom positions for the county and the other one did not.

County Judge Ray West pointed out that the raises for these positions would actually equalized a drop in pay that was given to the positions over a year ago & he made a motion to have the first budget with the raises approved.  After a brief discussion of that proposed budget, West looked for a second to his motion, but the commissioners were silent.

West then presented the budget without the raises which passed unanimously.  The budget for fiscal year 2009-2010 is balanced at $14,636,301.

During the adoption phase of the meeting, Suzy Young interjected her concern about the raises for her office.  She asked if there was anything more that she could do, but West indicated that her earlier presentation was the only action that could be taken.

Other action in the court today was:

-The continuation of a temporary employee for in the Tax Assessor Collector’s office to replace an employee out on sick leave.

-The court approved a change order in the roof repair of the Law Enforcement Center regarding the roof drain repairs.  The county had originally asked the contractors to replace a portion of the drain pipes, but after the repair it was discovered that the drains were leaking in a different place.  The change order will allow the contractors to add an additional $42,776 to the project to repair the drains properly.

-The City of Brownwood’s Parks and Recreation Department head David Withers submitted information on the “Texans Feeding Texans: Home-Delivered Meal Grant Program.” Withers said that this was just the continuation of the existing program that was already in place.