The Gray County Commissioners Court met on Thursday, June 15 for a regularly scheduled meeting. One of the topics most discussed was the acceptance of a LiveScan Idemia from the DPS. LiveScan is the device the Gray County Jail uses when intaking inmates to get fingerprints and photos of the inmates. The device uploads all fingerprints and photos to the DPS database. The first issue of the LiveScan was brought up in previous meetings when Jail Administrator Gracie Skinner approached the court about the issues they were having at the time. The current system the jail has is outdated and beyond it’s life, making it difficult to do the job needed.
“We visited this issue a couple of meetings ago and tabled it until budgets were set,” County Judge, Chris Porter said. “But, we are having major issues with our current LiveScan. The DPS came forward and said they would give us a LiveScan of their own, with a contractual agreement. If we don’t take them on this offer, they will move to another county to offer it where needed.”
“Taking the LiveScan is free to the county, the only time we would be liable to pay for something is if one of my jailers or an inmate messed it up or damaged it,” Jail Administrator, Skinner said. “If something like that were to happen, we would then have to pay to fix or replace it.”
The court approved the agreement and went forward with signing the agreement contract with the DPS. Agenda Item 7, ‘Consider Inter-local Agreement with Wheeler County for Housing Gray County Overflow Inmates’ was the next item discussed at large. The agreement would allow Gray County to move eight inmates to Wheeler County for housing when the jail in Pampa is over the limit.
“This contract is just something I wanted to pitch today,” Skinner said. “We have come to the issue where we have 81 or more inmates, I can’t hold that many. The limit for the jail here is 78. After I hit my max, I have to start releasing people to stay in compliance. Wheeler has began taking inmates again, the contract I’m am proposing would allow for eight inmates to be moved from Pampa to Wheeler. This is something I wanted to be considered by the court, it’s an option we have for the problem we are facing.”
The agreement would give Gray County first right to available beds when needed. Wheeler holds an agreement of this sort with other counties in the area, but it is only for inmate that are considered medium or below, no max inmates. As of 6/14, the jail only has 58 inmates in holding, the lowest number in a while for the jail.
“My biggest concern is we get to a point again where we are full, and we get troublesome inmates,” Porter said. “We need to have an option to send out medium inmates for a while. This agreement would be good for that matter, I do think it would be wise to approve this now.”
Gray County has agreements with Carson County and other counties for housing of inmates when needed, but voiced that she would like to cut down on the amount of contracts they enter into for housing. With more housing contracts comes more work the jailers, to keep up with who is where and costs. Wheeler is a closer option for Gray County as opposed to Carson County. There is no standing contract with Carson County, the jail just calls on them as needed.
The matter was approved, allowing Skinner to began the process of entering the contract agreement with Wheeler. Item 9, ‘Consider Inter-local Cooperation Contract with the Department of State Health Services with Gray County Allowing Local Government to Access the Texas Electronic Vital Events Registrar (TxEver) for the Gray County Clerk’s Office.’ Jeanne Horton, the County Clerk presented information and insight to the commissioners on this matter.
“This is a contract I have to sign every five years,” Horton said. “It allows us access to TxEver. This agreement is all about the security of the documents logged in, referring to death records or other important documents we file.”
TxEver handles all death records for Gray County and over sees the work from the county clerk to insure they are doing their job as they should be. County Judge Porter has read over all paperwork for this contract agreement, and felt confident in the agreement. The matter was approved, allowing Horton to continue on with her next steps to reenter the agreement.
The commissioners court entered into executive session under section 551.072 of Texas Government Code for Deliberations about Real Property at 9:16, returning to the open meeting at 9:42. The court came back into session to get into the emergency session regarding the recent events in Gray County.
“I sent out an emergency request to the governors office in reference to the hail storms and damage we’ve seen across the county.” Porter said.
A representative of the state was present to elaborate the handling of this manner to the court.
“This disaster is still on going, with possibility to see more. We haven’t hit a state level to get a FEMA debt yet,” The representative said. “We have hit roughly $92,000 of uninsured loss. Per county, if we have 25 homes or more destroyed, we can hit the small business administrations disaster deceleration from the governors office. It doesn’t have to be from one night, it can be an accumulative. We just have to get all damage documented.”
One the emergency management team is back, they will begin going door to door to collect damage amounts from across the county. The financial support from the governors office is only for damage to homes that are uninsured. Damaged roads apply to the state declaration, with estimate numbers for the claims on both accounts. The purpose of extending the declaration is to allow more time from the county to collect damage amounts across the whole county. The court approved the extension of 30 days, until July 15th.
Other Items discussed are as follows:
• Item 1 - ‘Pay Bills as Proposed by the County Auditor’ - Approved
• Item 2 - ‘Consider Line-Item Transfers’ and Item 3, ‘Consider Budget Amendments’ - NONE
• Item 4 - ‘Accept County Treasurer’s Monthly Report’ - Approved
• Item 5 - ‘Accept County Clerk’s Report’ - Nothing unusual, approved by the court and county auditor
• Item 8 - ‘Consider Removing Brenda Amador and Adding Nelda Copeland to Gray County Clerk’s Bond Account’ - Approved
The next Gray County Commissioners Court meeting is set for June 30th, at 9 am in the second floor courtroom of the Gray County Courthouse.
