Yoakum County hashes out road worker salary

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by Clinton Bowman
Special to TownTalk News
info@www.towntalkradio.com

 

The Yoakum County Court spent a considerable amount of time discussing a policy change on part time roadhands salaries. The change was needed after Precinct #3 Commissioner Ty Earl Powell had hired an employee as part time to help with the Parks in his precinct, but he was hired at $13.50 per hour, which is above the allotted $11 per hour as specified in the policy. Because of the Affordable Healthcare program, an employee cannot work above a certain number of hours and it still be considered part time and still be able to work for the $13.50 Powell had agreed to pay him.

After several ideas were tossed around the Commissioners agreed to change the policy to allow this employee to make $13.50 per hour as long as he does not work above the allotted hours, which will end in August.

Yoakum County Agrilife Agent Bubba Lamolinare was in attendance where he gave his monthly update report. He informed the Commissioners he had wrapped up his stock show season and is now concentrating on archery, which he said had a good attendance.

“I have a bunch of parents involved in this program and it sure does help,” Lamolinare said. “We’ve really had a good response from everyone.”

He went on to say with the parent involvement, he is now able to move on into the agriculture part of his program.

Other activities Lamolinare has been involved in was speaking at the Plains Library to people who are interested in gardening. He also recently visited the Newsom farm where grapes are being grown. And another thing of interest was reporting on the use of drones to help with the observation of the farm land and addressing any needs in the fields.

In his last item Lamolinare introduced Tyler Gray who is working with IPM program dealing with insects in the fields. Gray is a recent graduate of Texas A&M at Kingsville and is in charge of Terry, Yoakum, and Gaines Counties.

 

In the next item the Commissioners unanimously approved the hiring of Rachael Pillai at the Juvenile Probation Office effective April 25, 2016.

No action was taken on item #5 after it was learned a request from Excel Energy for permission to survey some land in Section 505, which is in Precinct #1, was not county land and was actually privately owned.

The next item dealing with an agreement between Werfen USA, LLC Instrumentation Laboratory Capital Purchase Proposal and Agreement and Yoakum County was tabled because the paper work had not been completed.

A request from County Auditor Darinda McWhirter for the promotion of Bellen Smelser from 2nd deputy position to 1st deputy effective April 25, 2016 was unanimously approved.

The Court also unanimously approved a motion to dispose of a lawn mower from the parks department. There was also one line item approved and no Soil Conservation request.

There was no new action taken on the Senior Citizen’s building.

Commissioner Ray Marion informed the Court the new Denver City Community building was being reconfigured to cut down the size and putting it within the original financial range. The new design will be finished sometime next week.

In auditing and settling all accounts against the County the court approved to pay all bills from the General Fund which totaled $51,705.30, Precinct #1 bills totaled $949.32, Precinct #2 bills totaled $702.49, Precinct #3 bills totaled $856.19, Precinct #4 bills totaled $1,977.53, Civic Center totaled $87.35, Yoakum County Airport totaled $208.22, and Yoakum County Landfill totaled $81.95 for a grand total of $56,568.35.

In medical bills $129,769.63 was paid from the hospital funds, $2,076.63 to West Texas Medical Center, $2,145.90 to the Plains Clinic, and $213.87 to the Plains Lifestyle for a grand total of $134,206.03 of hospital bills.

In other medically related bills $267.68 was paid to Home Health and $10,486.24 to Dialysis for a grand total of $144,959.86 in medically related bills.

Commissioners Woody Lindsey, Ray Marion, and Ty Earl Powell along with County Judge Jim Barron were all in attendance. Commissioner Tim Addison was not present.

The next meeting will be held on Monday, May 2 at 10 AM in the County Courthouse.

 

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