Five more county departments met with the Commissioners Court Thursday in a budget workshop. This was the second such workshop and a third is scheduled for next week.
Two of the department heads that met with the Commissioners Thursday were Justices of the Peace Joy Dubose Simonton and Chad Jenkins. Both judges are requesting more work hours for their clerks. This would result in overtime pay for them, but would be done to help relieve a backlog of cases in both of the Justice of the Peace courts.
Simonton asked for a new safe to be purchased for her office, and may actually have funds in her current budget to buy it as part of this year’s budget. Jenkins is requesting a new copier with an estimated cost of $4,932.
Sabrina Gray over the Parks Department made several requests. Gray wants to have an additional part-time employee with whom she can rotate the weekend shift of 29 hours with other part-time employees.
The parks’ director is requesting a new crew cab pickup truck which could be purchased locally since no special equipment is needed on it. Gray knows the county is awaiting on funds from FEMA to pay for replacement restrooms to be built at the Claiborne West Park, but requested some more permanent restrooms be added until then to replace the port-a-potties currently at the park.
A request was made for a survey of the Blue Bird Fish Camp which is operated by the Parks Department. This will help determine the boundaries of the fish camp. Gray’s final request was for signage to be made and installed at the Blue Bird Fish Camp and at the Raymond Gould Park in Vidor to identify them as part of the Orange County Parks Department.
The computers and software at the Courthouse and all of the county offices are handled by the Management Information Systems or MIS office. Department head Lisa Reeves informed the Commissioners Court her budget was reduced for the year except for the increase in contract maintenance fees for the county’s computers. She did request 41 new PCs and five laptops for different county departments.
The Commissioners received some good news from their discussion with the last department head Thursday. Fallon Foster of the AgriLife Extension Service requested a part-time employee in her office by reclassified as a NE-1 full-time employee.
Although the salary and benefits for that full-time position would increase to $40,779 the net change in the budget would be a reduction. Foster could do away with pay for the part-time employee position and the county’s share of the additional salary for a 4-H coordinator.
The next budget workshop is scheduled for Tuesday morning with five more department heads to make requests. On the agenda for Tuesday are the County Clerk’s Office, Elections Administration, County Court at Law, the Veterans’ Office, and Emergency Management. That workshop will be at 9:00 AM in the Commissioners Courtroom of the Administration Building.
-Dan Perrine, KOGT-
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