Western Texas College’s board of trustees and officials learned the results of an assessment of the licensed vocational nursing (LVN) program and county road issues again topped the headlines in April.
An independent consultant recommended that the college’s LVN program should not be reinstated. During the April board meeting, Dr. Susan Sportsman, of Academic Consulting Group, went over her findings from a needs assessment survey. The board did not take action on the recommendation during the meeting.
Sportsman sent 53 surveys to groups in the healthcare community throughout the area. She said only one response was received.
Sportsman said more people are licensed as LVNs than there are job openings. She also said two colleges in the region are already providing an LVN program.
Scurry County Judge Ricky Fritz said in April that work on CR 1116 by county road crews was the result a misunderstanding between the road and bridge department superintendent and the landowner. Fritz said no disciplinary action would be taken against the crews or Superintendent Paz Elizondo.
But a group of citizens wanted answers.
Scurry County commissioners, on Sept. 30, 2014, voted to allow landowner John Hamlett to move a section of CR 1116 and rebuild it at his own expense and to specifications set by Scurry County. On Dec. 8, Hamlett informed Elizondo the road was finished. Elizondo said he inspected the road and approved the work as having met county standards, which are not in writing.
Fritz said Elizondo and Hamlett both believed the new road was then owned by the county. At that point, county crews started performing additional work on the road.
During the April 21 commissioners’ meeting, a group of citizens expressed their concerns and said they were upset about the need for a county road superintendent, the work on CR 1116 and work that’s needed on other roads.
Luann Walker said she felt “thousands of misallocated dollars” had been spent on CR 1116 because it was still a private road.
“Paz approved the road on Dec. 8, but it still has to be raised and culverts installed to meet county standards,” Walker said.
“We are going to have to come up with thousands of more dollars (to fix the road),” John Walker said.
But not all the focus was on CR 1116.
“I’ve lived in Pct. 4 since 1968 and for the last three or four years, our roads have gone down,” Welda McHaney said.
Edwin Parks suggested the county needed to be investigated.
“I believe the Texas Rangers should be called into evaluate the situation,” Parks said.
Also during April, the U.S. Census Bureau released its population estimates for Texas counties. The 2014 estimated population for Scurry County was 17,328, which was an increase of 61 people compared to the 2013 estimate of 17,267. The official 2010 population for the county was 16,921.
The Snyder City Council voted in April to declare funding for the demolition of the Brownfield Building an emergency and amended the budget to add up to $400,000 for the work because council members didn’t expect the building’s owner, Roger Fraim, would pay for it.
The city was given a 12-month approval from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to dispose of asbestos-contaminated material at the Snyder Landfill as long as certain conditions were met. Those conditions ranged from having a licensed contractor do the demolition work to the type of containers that were to be used to transport and dispose of the contaminated materials.
That helped reduce the cost of the demolition since the city did not have to haul the waste to Abilene or Canyon.
Deposits at four of five Scurry County’s banks grew significantly over the past year, and that trend continued in the first quarter of 2015. Outstanding loans, however, were down compared to the end of the previous quarter and last year.
Combined, the banks who made information available reported holding $381.2 million in deposits as of March 31, 2015 and $146.6 million in outstanding loans.
The banks reported a combined $370.5 million in deposits in December 2014 and $323.2 million in deposits in March 2014.
For the second straight month, Snyder’s sales tax allocations from the state were below $300,000. The city received $291,986 in April, a 2 percent drop compared to the April 2014 total of $298,166.Scurry County received $126,058, down 28.3 percent compared to the April 2014 total of $175,725.
Scurry County’s March unemployment rate hit a 19-month high at 3.9 percent. At the time, that was the highest rate since the August 2013 rate of 4.2 percent.
Patterson-UTI Energy, Inc., reported a drop in both net income and revenues for the first quarter of 2015.
Patterson reported a net income of $9.1 million for the first quarter of 2015, compared to a net income of $34.8 million for the first quarter of 2014. Revenues for the 2015 first quarter were $658 million, compared to $678 million for the first quarter of 2014.
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