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Shown (l-r), County Commissioners Shawn McCowen and Craig Merritt, County Judge Dan Hicks, Archie Kerr, 10, Teddy Kerr, 8, Commissioner Terry Williams, Scurry County Children’s Librarian Amy Hodges, and Commissioner Jim Robinson. Hodges, along with Archie and Teddy, spoke about the library’s homeschooled outreach programs, and challenged the commissioners to a “snowball” fight in the library using cloth snowballs. The fight will commence Feb. 28 at 10 a.m.
Scurry County Commissioners on Tuesday voted to change the county’s bad weather policy, with details to be worked out in the future.
“I think Scurry County needs to stand on its own,” said Precinct 3 Commissioner Shawn McCowen. “I really do.”
McCowen’s reaction was to the county’s policy of following Snyder Independent School District’s lead when it comes to bad weather responses, especially closings due to inclement weather.
“The issue came up the bad weather policy the Friday of the snow storm,” said County Judge Dan Hicks. “We had the storm on Tuesday night and Wednesday, and by Friday, most of it was pretty much gone. However, we follow the school district, as you can see in our policy, and there’s really no deviation from that. So, the school, on Friday, said they did not want a late start, because they get out early on Fridays. That kind of puts us in an awkward situation if we follow the schools. We could’ve had a late start and had a day of work on that Friday.”
Another issue that led Snyder ISD to close its doors Friday was a rash of flu cases that kept approximately 30 teachers and many students home that week.
Scurry County Library Children’s Librarian Amy Hodges spoke about the library’s program for the county’s homeschooled children.
“As y’all know, I do a lot of programs at the library, but one that is near and dear to my heart is the homeschool,” Hodges said. “Our homeschool in Snyder is very large. In fact, on Friday, I had 38 kids. That’s just kids, not including moms.”
Hodges said one thing kids involved in the program really love is indoor snowball fights.
“It snows at the library quite often,” she quipped. “They have something to present to you. We would like to challenge the commissioners to a snowball fight.”
Hodges presented the commissioners with white, snowball-sized fluffy pom-poms.
“There will be enough there for everybody to have some,” Hodges said. “We would like for everybody to come. We think it will be really fun.”
Scurry County Adult Probation Director Cy Tabor and Scurry County EMS Director Jason Tyler each spoke about grants they’re pursuing for their offices.
“The idea of the grant was, to contract or hire out that transportation, leaving your officers there to do what their job should be instead of turning them into drivers,” Tabor said.
Tabor said he partnered with other juvenile probation officers in the West Texas region to apply for a grant for transportation funds.
“It’s not a detention or lockup, but a residential placement,” he said. “So I was able to get that grant, and that’s a $90,000 grant that I was able to secure for (fiscal year) 2020.”
Tyler said he’s applied for a grant for equipment including intravenous pumps, as well as the annual medicaid supplemental payment program grant.
“We’re trying to get our data gathered for that,” Tyler said. “The money used to come in about $136,000. Since then, we’re down to about $36,000. Medicaid just isn’t giving us what we’re used to getting.”
Tyler said he also applied for and received a grant through the Governor’s Office which helps replace ambulances which have been lost through extraordinary circumstances.
“We were awarded $400,000 for a type-2 ambulance,” he said.
The county has to pay $8,000 as its portion of the bill for the ambulance, Tyler said.
The commissioners also voted to add a provision to the county’s guidelines and criteria for granting tax abatements in reinvestment zones policy.
Line-item transfers
•$17,550 to equipment more than $5,000 from repairs, construction of new lines and maintenance and repair for Hermleigh Water Works. To pay for tank cleanings and repairs.
•$1 to other equipment less than $5,000 from equipment $1,000 to $5,000 for the 132nd District Court.
•$17,371 to contract services program expenses and general liability insurance from maintenance and repairs and activity supplies for the Scurry County Youth Center. To correct budgeting errors.
•$8,719 to capital expenditures more than $5,000 to fuel and oil for Scurry County EMS. To cover the remaining amount of purchase over EEF Grant award.