Efforts to consolidate some of the smaller county departments in an attempt to streamline services, staffing and expenses resulted in an unexpected twist during Tuesday’s regular meeting of the Polk County Commissioners Court with Aging Services being placed within the purview of Precinct 2 Commissioner Mark Dubose.
During previous meetings, the Court had discussed combining the Grants and Contracts Department with the Purchasing and Procurement Department and placing Aging Services and Veteran Services under the umbrella of the Social Services Department.
“The pushback seems to be Aging. Purchasing and Procurement is totally happy. She stood up in court and said she was. Purchasing and Procurement has already started working with Grants and Contracts and they’re pulling that team together. The other ones, the Veteran Service officer, has also already started moving forward and visiting with Tammy Plattenburg of Social Services. My recommendation to the Court is that we proceed with those two positions and that we simply pull aging out since that seems to be where the real rub is,” County Judge Sydney Murphy said.
Dubose indicated that he had spoken with the various parties and that they are not happy with the proposal.
“But we need to think about the department, not the people. We’ve got to think about what’s best regardless. We need to think about what’s best for the county,” Precinct 1 Commissioner Guylene Robertson said.
“Evidently all of you were contacted and we have been working with Aging Services but have not been able to be very successful and so we pull Aging out and we have one of you all supervise Aging from this point forward because the accusations that she has made are pretty severe and pretty serious and I do not intend to jeopardize my team. We’ve been working with her on trying to get grants. That department has been losing funding steadily because those are all DETCOG grants. The county has completely lost the MET Program because the federal government has shut that down. DETCOG is losing funding as all of you are aware, and that contract is no longer a year-long contract. It’s a month to month and that’s a death spiral is what that is,” Murphy said.
“My suggestions is let’s move forward with Procurement with Grants and Contracts with Purchasing with the Veteran Services Office and we certainly can come back and review the status and my recommendation is that we turn over Aging to you,” Murphy said, turning to Dubose.
“I’ll be more than welcome to take it,” Dubose said.
“And this way, we pull Aging out and Commissioner Dubose can work on the grants, streamlining the processes, streamlining the complaints in that department and so forth. If I’m ineffective in working with that department head, there’s four other people,” Murphy said.
“The way I understand it, they just give her the time sheets, but everybody gets to share a secretary so everybody could have a little more help if they need it,” Precinct 3 Commissioner Milt Purvis said.
“That is correct,” Murphy said.
“I don’t have a problem with it,” Precinct 4 Commissioner Jerry Cassity said.
“I do want to pull Aging out and have Commissioner Dubose be the one that represents the Court in discussions with Aging,” Murphy said.
“I just think it’d been better off if the transitioning would’ve been in a different way,” Dubose said.
“And absolutely. You have criticisms about the manner that I went about it, but we’ve been discussing it starting in the budget. We started discuss this before we even went into the budget. We started in January,” Murphy said.
As the discussion wound down, the Court approved the update to Personnel Management System Book 1 and Book 2.
An order adopting the Polk County Public Information Act policy and establishing time limits under Tex. Gov’t. Code Section 552.275 was approved.
The Court approved a proposal from the Polk Central Appraisal District (CAD) to purchase 202 Matthews St. The lot is adjacent to Polk CAD’s existing property and will allow for future expansion and customer parking.
A three-year agreement with Eastex Telephone for voice over internet protocol (VOIP) phone service was approved. According to Murphy, grants and contracts worked closely with IT and the agreement was reviewed and approved by legal counsel.
Requests for capital purchases to be paid from the general fund balance and included on the fiscal year 2026 reimbursement resolution for the year-end issuance of legally authorized debt were approved, specifically, police equipment for the Precinct 3 constable in the amounts of $6,972 to be purchased from Stalker Radar and $5,965.20 to be purchased from NKB Concepts.
Authorization for Goodwin Lasiter and Strong to advertise for road improvement construction bids for the General Land Office Community Development Block Grant Regional Mitigation Projects was approved. This is for roads and bridges in Precincts 2 and 4. Bids will be opened on Oct. 16.
In personnel matters, the Court approved personnel action form requests submitted by department heads since the last meeting. The Court also approved a request from Sheriff Byron Lyons to pay out accrued straight time, FLSA time and holiday time as presented, and to pay out all accrued straight time upon the discontinuation of straight-time leave code.
A resolution in support of Operation Green Light for Veterans was approved. Operation Green Light is a public initiative where residents, businesses, and governments display green lights to show appreciation and support for veterans transitioning to civilian life.
The Court approved a motion to replat Clearwater Springs Subdivision, located in Precinct 2, and also approved the re-bids for limestone road base and motor grader blades.
Fiscal year 2025 and fiscal year 2026 budget revisions and amendments, as presented by the county auditor’s office, were approved.
During informational reports, the Polk County Historical Commission was presented the Distinguished Service Award and the annual report from the Polk County Memorial Museum was presented.
Items on the consent agenda included:
Chris Borden of First Assembly of God opened the meeting with prayer.
