Brown County Commissioners met Monday morning, July 26. The meeting lasted just over one hour with the majority of that time spent on agenda item 8B.
County Judge, Dr. Paul Lilly, led discussion on possible approval of action regarding approval of the County Judge’s recommendation for the use of funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. The recommendation was for $922,794 for water improvements requested by Brookesmith, Zephyr and May water supply providers. Another $750,000 was recommended ($250,000 each) for Bangs, Early and Brookesmith school districts.
According to a previous news story last week on Brownwoodnews.com, the water infrastructure and school district improvements total $1,672,794 – not counting money that would possibly go to Brown County Water Improvement District ($2.7 million for generators) – which leaves a total of $5,681,844 of unused money. The county has already received $3.6 million from the ARP Act with the rest expected in May 2022. You can read a detailed story about the recommended spending at this link.
Shane Britton, County Attorney, brought up his concern for more transparency in the process to divvy up the funds saying that each of the entities requesting funds should appear before Commissioners Court and present their intentions on how they plan to use the money.
After much discussion and lively back and forth, the court took no action on the proposed use of the funds. You can watch the entire discussion on the video replay of the meeting, on the Brown County website, at this link.
The recommendation of use of funds will be back on the agenda at the next commission meeting Monday, August 2, at 9:00 am.
In other business: Commissioners approved an inter-local agreement between Brown County and the Regional Public Defender Office Local Government Corporation for capital murder cases. Cost to the county is $36,601.
No action was taken on the burn ban, so it remains off at this time. It will be reconsidered at the meeting next Monday.
Commissioners approved funding, for 14 months, the position of Assistant District Attorney who will be assigned cases pending due to court closures during COVID. The position will be a minimum starting salary of $65,000 plus benefits.