Employees at the Orange County Courthouse will see an increase in their insurance coverage next fiscal year. The Commissioners Court held a workshop Tuesday to hear from the Texas Association of Counties (TAC) on the renewal of health and employees benefits for 2018-2019.
Human Resources Director Lori Ardoin followed up the workshop during the regular weekly meeting with the proposals offered by TAC. Ardoin said the health insurance coverage will be going up 8.3 percent next year. Some good news is that dental coverage will be going down 2.5 percent for county employees. The Court approved both of those plans. TAC is still working out the details on a vision plan, so the Commissioners took no action on that insurance.
Orange County will up its annual contribution to the Orange Community Action Association, better known as Meals on Wheels. Linda Hughes the director of the program requested an increase of five thousand dollars, and the Commissioners unanimously approved granting Meals on Wheels $45,000 for the fiscal year October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019. The Court encouraged Hughes to apply again to the Texas Department of Agriculture for a Texans Feeding Texans grant that would match the amount donated by Orange County.
The county received a clean report on its audit for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2017. Chris Pruitt with Patillo, Brown, & Hill addressed the Commissioners Court in reviewing the audit performed by his company. Pruitt said the county should have about four million dollars available on next year’s budget.
County Engineer Clark Slacum asked the Court’s opinion on whether his department should pursue rehabilitation work on requests from cities and schools concerning their streets and parking lots. Slacum informed that his department is only about 50 percent complete with repairing damaged roads from Harvey and squeezing in repairs requested from outside his department would be difficult especially for schools which would need the work done before classes resume at the end of August.
Commissioner Barry Burton recently attended training classes in the Rio Grande Valley. Burton commented that his training stated that state policy is for counties to charge the going rate for repairs of streets and parking lots that commercial companies would charge. Orange County currently charges the very minimum for possibly the road material only. The Court decided to take no action this week to allow the Commissioners to research the situation further.
Soon Commissioners Court meetings will be videotaped. Lisa Reeves with the Management Information Systems department at the Courthouse received three bids for the installation of cameras and recording equipment in the Commissioners Courtroom. Two of the bids were over $13,000 each. The Court approved going with Maverick Communications at a cost of $1,143.45 to setup the recording apparatus. Reeves said the cost could be paid from her budget which will accelerate the purchasing process.
Tuesday morning the Commissioners Court conducted its first budget workshop for next fiscal year. Four departments gave their requests above normal budgeted items. The Sheriff’s Office and the Emergency Management Office also gave their capital outlay requests.
Joel Ardoin the Emergency Management Coordinator requested the purchase of two Tahoe SUVS to replace two current vehicles in his department. The cost would be $50,740 each.
Sheriff Keith Merritt requested eight new patrol vehicles for his department. He is requesting these vehicles to replace eight Dodge Chargers which would then be auctioned off or could be used as fleet vehicles at the Orange County Airport now that the county has taken over operation of the airfield.
Although not requested for next year’s budget, Merritt told the Commissioners Court that the Orange County Jail will need infrastructure repairs in the next few years. The sheriff mentioned specifically the entire sewer system which had some major repairs done recently in the women’s unit of the jail and connecting beams are rusting in several areas of the jail.
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