Commissioners order rollback election in front of crowded room

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Scurry County residents packed the third-floor courtroom at the County Courthouse this morning to hear county commissioners order the tax rate rollback election, and to sound off about the way they feel the commissioners are handling the county’s money.
During the meeting, County Judge Dan Hicks read a resolution ordering the rollback election for Jan. 28, 2020. During the election, voters will vote for or against “Reducing the tax rate in Scurry County for the current year from 0.44980 (dollars per $100 valuation) to 0.34970 (dollars per $100 valuation).”
The rollback election comes after a group of local citizens gathered more than the required 644 signatures on a petition to trigger it.
Commissioners began to consider plans for reducing the county’s budget in case the rollback election is successful, drawing much criticism from the gatthered crowd.
Morgan West, Gayle Summers and Shelia Eckert addressed the commissioners prior to the agenda item.
“Never in my life have I seen such viciousness from a governmental body,” West said. “So many scare tactics are being told to voters. If the numbers are correct in the 2020 budget, there is no mathematical reason for these threats.”
West went on to say that the commissioners’ planned 2020 budget represents a $3.3 million increase over 2019’s budget. Eckert spoke out against a popular perception that commissioners are holding the threat of eliminating county services over the heads of county citizens to influence the rollback effort.
“Opposition started on July 30 at 1 p.m. in the meeting,” she said. “Mr. (Craig) Merritt stated that the department heads need to convince taxpayers to agree with the tax rate or some will not still be here. One person’s suggestion caught my attention: The threat to shut down departments that people hold dear.”
She gave the example of a threat of the museum’s closure in the past.
“Now the court is threatening to close entities most citizens want and need: Youth Center, Scurry County Senior Citizens Center, library and swimming pool, and probably even the Health Department. The lower middle income citizens use and depend on these services.”
Hicks answered some of the concerns.
“As far as voter suppression goes, I will not tolerate voter suppression. I want everybody to get out and vote how they feel, based on the information that is at hand,” he said. “Not my side, or your side, or any side. I want them to base their vote on the facts, and I want everybody to vote.There is no voter suppression on my part, and as far as I know, on any other department’s part. If there is voter suppression from any department head, I want to know about it.”
Hicks spoke about making cuts if the rollback succeeds
“When we said there was a possibility we would have to cut some departments, it wasn’t just saying that to scare people. It’s a fact,” he said. 
“(We’re) $4-and-a-half million shy. Kinder Morgan hasn’t paid the other portion of their taxes, which they don’t intend to, because they’re suing the appraisal district. That’s $1.4 million. So, I put the trapper, the golf course, the welfare office, the youth center, $50,000 from each of the precincts, you may disagree with that or you may not, but then the airport runway fund that we were trying to build up some money to get the taxiway done, this, I think would be the last portion to get to the grant, which is a $5 million grant, we’d just have to get the $500,000, we cut that part out. Those yellow highlighted areas are $1,183,836.”
Hicks also addressed losses to revenue that the county would incur if they cut some programs currently in place.
“Parks brings in about $54,000. That’s not chump change. We have to figure out the indigent funerals. Drug expenses and medical fees from welfare, that’s $35,000. I was thinking if we put that anywhere, hopefully we’d be able to do that through the Health Unit. Youth center brings in about $20,000, health unit brings in about $20,000, senior center donations are about $25,000, library fees are about $7,500, and the golf course is about $89,000 that they bring in. So when we talk about all of these, we also need to consider $266,250 in revenue that these places bring in.”
Commissioners agreed to consider potential options until the next meeting Dec. 30, at which time they would try to develop a plan of action in case the rollback election turns out to be a success. 
Also during the meeting, commissioners heard an introduction from Texas Department of Transportation representative Carrie Hart in which she approved using the health unit to perform drug screenings for new employees and random testing for current county employees.  
Line-item transfers
•$4,300 from maintenance, repair and miscellaneous to capital expenditures for the senior center for security cameras.
•$863 from office supplies to contract labor, and education and training for the health unit to clean up end-of-year lines.
•$984 from professional services to education and training at Scurry County EMS to clean up end-of-year lines.
•$132 from maintenance agreements to communications and training for the tax office for adjustments to cover bills.
•$10,680 from residential to office supplies, audit expense, non-residential, travel expense and professional fees for juvenile probation. Funds are being moved from residential in order to balance office supplies, audit, non-residential, travel and professional fee expenses.
•$300 from travel expense to office supplies for the district clerk’s office for restocking paper.
•$72,097 from workers comp, $2,767 from general payroll and 23,438 from part-time payroll to appraisal district fees, computer maintenance, software maintenance, maintenance, repair and miscellaneous, and rural brush truck, non-departmental for clearing up non-departmental lines end-of-year.
•$260,879 from insurance, $93,671 from general payroll, $26,194 from part-time payroll and $12,118 from swimming pool payroll to insurance for insurance/county wide to balance insurance lines end-of-year.
•$34 from worker’s comp, $150 from clothing allowance and $24 from SUTA to worker’s comp, clothing allowance and SUTA for county-wide fringe lines to balance fringe lines end-of-year.
•$24,353 from retirement to retirement for county-wide retirement to balance retirement lines end-of-year.
•$13,744 from Social Security to Social Security for county-wide Social Security to balance Social Security lines end-of-year.
•$6,082 from part-time payroll to part-time payroll for county-wide payroll lines, to balance payroll lines end-of-year.
•$125,836 from general payroll to general payroll for county-wide payroll lines, to balance payroll lines end-of-year.
•$6,729 from department head to department head and general payroll for county-wide payroll lines, to balance payroll lines end-of-year.
•$844 from court-appointed attorney to jury expense for the District Court. 
•$200 from maintenance, repairs and miscellaneous to janitorial at the maintenance department for parts for floor scrubber.
•$500 for general payroll to utilities at Scurry County EMS. To cover expenses projected for the rest of the year.
Budget amendments
•$2,200 for medical expense for the county treasurer. Failed to budget enough money.
•$6,804 for miscellaneous expense for courthouse security. Courthouse security cameras updated.
•$1,150 for Justice of the Peace Precinct 1 equipment $1,000 to $5,000 and $1,150 for Justice of the Peace equipment $1,000 to $5,000 for Justice of the Peace security. Annex security cameras updated.
•$11,560 for contract labor at the Scurry County Jail. Final SHP payment of fiscal year from Prisoner Keep revenue.
•$13,600 for retirement, $12,136 for food, $18 for unemployment, $15.62 for operating supplies, $399 for education and training and $1,980 for utilities for the Scurry County Jail. Clear up lines using prisoner keep funds.