When the Terry County Commissioners met on Monday morning, June 13, the Terry County Cemetery Association (TCCA) occupied most of the meeting because they had been notified by the Terry County Treasurers’ Office when current County Treasurer Karen Grisby retires, the TCCA will no longer be housed at the Treasurer’s Office.
With Commissioner Precinct 1 Mike Swain sitting in for Judge Butch Wagner, who was gone due to a death in the family, the meeting opened with Public Comment. The only public comment time requested was by current County Treasurer Karen Grigsby.
“We have kept and housed all the records for the Terry County Cemetery Association for at least the last 35 to 40 years. It is not a part of Terry County (government). Terry County does not fund the association. They are self-funded and run by a board of directors. Down through the years, when the records were kept at other places, they were not being kept very well.” said Grigsby.
Grisby continued to address the Commissioners Court saying,
“Then County Treasurer at that time, Bobbie Montgomery, offered to house the records in her office as a service. It is not a core duty of a County Treasurer. It is actually just an extra job on top of our already full-time job. I wanted the court to be aware of that. I want you to be aware that in the past two and a half years with COVID, the work it has placed on us has doubled in some of those months and even tripled. Keeping up with state compliance and everything, it has become burdensome to try to keep that and the county duties that we were elected to do.
I let the board know two months ago in the last Cemetery Association meeting that I was going to be retiring, and that I would keep it in my office as long as I was in office, but the incoming Treasurer, Andrea Perry, no longer wants to keep the Association in her office when she takes office. We made them aware of this and the problems we have been having, as far as the extra workload.
I just wanted to address this to the court before they speak.”
Swain asked if there were any laws or statutes that requires this duty in the Treasurer’s office. Grigsby responded that no, there was not.
“All it says in the cemetery bylaws is that there ‘may be a number kept at the courthouse’, not shall, there may. We have just been providing this as a service for the community.”
Swain asked Grigsby what percentage of time she would estimate they spend on cemetery business.
“It just depends on how many funerals are going on. But just because we are not having funerals doesn’t mean people aren’t constantly calling to check on spaces they may have already purchased. People are coming in and buying more spaces. The Cemetery is a totally separate entity from the County Courthouse, but we do their payroll for the Sexton and his workers. We do the workers comp, the unemployment, the bank account of theirs. We handle all their receivables, we pay their bills, we do their deposits. We take care of all this just like we do for Terry County.”
Commissioner Ernie Elizardo asked,
“This is a service that has been provided for 40 years, right? Why would you just change the service?”
Grigsby responded, “Workload… and it is interfering with our county workload that we are elected to do. That is our real job. This was taken on years ago when funerals were few and far between. The State laws we have to be compliant with have grown.”
President of the Terry County Cemetery Association, Buzz Steele then addressed the board as agenda item #2. He was joined by Board member Patsy Nicholson.
Steele stated,
“I come before the County Commissioners as President of the Cemetery Board. As of about two or three weeks ago, we were asked to remove anything associated with the Cemetery from the County Treasurers’ office as of January 1. The County Treasurer is no longer going to handle anything associated with the cemetery, the deeds, and such. This is a little bit unusual to me because just before this, y’all’s representative, who is Mr. Wagner, abruptly resigned from the board in a group text as of immediately. This was three or four days before the board meeting. Someone asked in the group text why, and there was no response. Then at the board meeting, the County Treasurer’s office informed us they were no longer going to handle our business, as of January 1, 2023. So this kind of threw us for a loop.
About a week later, Patsy got a call from the Courthouse and went to the Treasurer’s Office and met with the Treasurer and the County Clerk, and was informed that the Clerk stated that for the last 50 or so years, no fee was charged for the recording of the deeds. And one was now going to be charged.
So here we are today. We always assumed, and no one gave it any thought, but that the work done at the courthouse for the cemetery was kind of a county contribution to the cemetery because the county and the city have both avoided the cemetery and anything that goes with it like its hot metal. I know it is for financial purposes. No one wants the job. No one wants the liability. Nobody wants the expense. And I would like to point out something here. There is virtually no expense. We are pretty close to a break-even organization. With the board being 100% volunteer, that saves money. We do have a staff out there that is relatively unsupervised. We do have to do things out there. Since I have been on the board, we have replaced nearly all the equipment. You have to generate money and you have to save money. The cemetery has a balance of about $275,000 in CDs. People light up like a Christmas tree when you say this, but we try to get people to understand that we have to keep this cemetery forever. We don’t have a yearly budget that we might have a surplus. We have to save and take care of what we have.
The cemetery is in a quandary. We don’t know what triggered it. I am hoping it wasn’t a personal vendetta against anyone. If it is, you are not hurting me. I have been trying to resign for two years and I can’t get anyone to replace me. If it is a personal vendetta, then it is only hurting the people of this county. It is not hurting me.
Since one of the cemeteries (Brownfield Cemetery) is in the City limits, and the others are in the County, we do offer a seat on the board to one representative from the City and one from the County. We were shocked when y’all’s representative abruptly resigned. I am sorry he is not here today. But I am not surprised.
The City gives us a portion of our electricity and garbage for free, which amounts to about $1,000 a year. We have always worked really well with the County.
The question today is what format will the cemetery continue to run. We don’t have people with the compassion to serve the cemetery like we have had in the past.
We have also planted this seed at City Hall. The seed we have planted is that there is a really good chance these cemeteries are about to be unmanaged. So y’all, as the keepers of the County and the keepers of the City are going to have to decide what to do. If the County is going to dump on us, like we feel like they did, then something is going to have to be done.
My vote is to walk off and give it to the City and the County.”
Nicholson chimed in stating,
“We were also told three or four weeks ago that after all these years of donating the fee to record the deed, by the County, they were no longer going to be doing that.”
Steele then stated,
“The importance of this is that the deeds are recorded by the County Clerk’s office and they then mail the deed to the purchaser. Without this, we cannot turn these deeds over to the individuals. And there is a good chance that the deeds will end up being not recorded if the fee is not paid. Having this in the courthouse was such a convenience not just to us, but to the families.
The Judge offered the Enoch Stewart building for a $1 a year or something. We are not a bit interested in that. So that is where we are. And y’all need to think about this deep and hard. City Hall is going to look and see what other cemeteries and cities are doing.
With a Memorandum of Understanding, both entities can work together on this. I think we are probably one of the only counties in the area that has been left with individuals trying to run the cemetery.
We are not far from having to close the Brownfield Cemetery due to a lack of spaces and the way it was laid out all those years ago. When this happens, all burials will be at the County Cemetery. The plots in the County Cemetery are a bit more expensive and when you add on another fee on top of that, it gets more difficult for families to be able to afford to bury their loved ones. I don’t feel like y’all even knew the County has chosen to not honor the age old tradition of recording the deeds for no cost as a County contribution.
So here we are. This is a very serious problem. Who has the solution?”
Swain responded to the crowd,
“I think the County and the City have got to get together and talk about this.”
Grigsby then stated,
“On behalf of the Treasurer’s office, the State of Texas determines our core duties as County Treasurer. This is not a personal vendetta against anyone on this board. This is a workload issue. They are not in my office. They don’t know. We are still getting calls daily regarding cemetery business.”
Steele would ask and state,
“What I would like to ask y’all, is until we can solve this problem, whatever happens, that we can stay status quo. We don’t need the new fee from the Clerk’s office. We need to keep things at the Treasurer’s office. Let us work on this and try to get the workload lightened until we can find a place to go. We all working on this. We will either get it out of y’all’s hair or throw it right in your lap. One way or the other. But we are working on it.
County Clerk Kim Carter stated,
“This is not a new fee. We are trying to get everything standardized per statute. The statute says we are to charge it.”
Nicholson asked if they were fined for doing this with Carter responding saying,
“No. We are just trying to get everything cleaned up.”
Nicholson asked,
“But it has been illegal for 50 years?”
Steele and Nicholson left following their presentation.
Swain then told the Court,
“We have to have a solution by January 1, We have to work on finding one. I think I am correct that Buzz went by the Chamber and asked them if they would be interested in doing this. They don’t want Enoch Stewart. That is a train wreck and we all know that. This is just like when the Clerk’s office no longer wanted the elections in there because of the workload, we had to find a solution. But this solution has to be City and County. We have to keep going as we are until we find a solution. That is just my opinion.”
Commissioner Precinct 4 Ernie Elizardo stated,
“I think we need to keep supporting it. For the past 50 years, it has been going on this way. Why would we change it? In any office, if I ask for something, the answer is always ‘Well, this is the way we have always done it. So I can’t change it.’ When someone new comes into office and they go to a conference and find out all the new stuff, all of a sudden what we have been doing for 50 years is wrong and has to be change. The people that are dying can’t defend themselves. If we just throw this out, who is going to find a place for them? If we are not here to support the cemetery, then why are we supporting the Senior Center, or any of the other entities in the county? We are supposed to be here to take care of the County, I feel. If it is more work, then it is more work. I understand what Kim is saying, but if we have been doing this for 50 years without any problem, then why change it? If we are going to change this for the cemetery, then we need to go back and change all the old contracts and ways we have done things. All the Cemetery Association is trying to do is help. This is just my opinion. We can do whatever you want, but we are elected to serve the people of Terry County. But if we change this, we need to change other things. This needs to be left alone. I have said my opinion.”
Swain finished with item of business saying,
“If this could be housed somewhere else, that would help but we have got to get the City and County together. This is all for information only. But when the Judge gets back, we need to set up an appointment with the City and start working on solving this problem,”
In other business, Doug Melcher was appointed to the Terry County Appraisal District Directors to represent Terry County.
Fireworks sales were approved for the July 4th period (June 24 – July 4) with the exception of rockets and finned fireworks. Even though the county has had some rainfall, it remains in the exceptional drought category.
The bond for Sabrina Bandy to serve as Terry County Auditor has been received and she is officially in office.
The replacement of an employee for the kitchen at the Terry County Law Enforcement Center was approved.
The annual agreement between West Texas Center (MHMR) and Terry County was approved.
A system of disposal of obsolete computers, printers, and monitors was approved by the Court.
Monthly reports were also approved for the Terry County Clerk, District Clerk, County Judge, Justice of the Peace, Sheriff, and Ag Agent.
