Commissioners take action on renovation issues

Milam County Commissioners discussed ongoing issues with the renovation of the Professional Building next to the new County Annex during a meeting on Monday.

Commissioners unanimously approved sending a Notice of Non-Performance to ArchiTexas. The notice is in regard to ongoing issues and construction at the Professional Building. 

Milam County Judge Bill Whitmire told commissioners that ArchiTexas has been paid by the county roughly $750,000 in the past four years. 

He said the Professional Building project in particular has seen vast overruns and rising costs. 

Commissioners are likely to take up issuing a tax note to pay for further anticipated overages later this year just to finish the project. 

Whitmire told commissioners during the meeting that the project has ballooned to about $4.8 million from the anticipated $2.8 million that was expected at the beginning of the project. 

Commissioners also took action on employee health benefits in two separate votes. The first was a unanimous decision to roll vision and dental benefits into their recently approved health coverage. The Court then also voted unanimously in favor of keeping things as they are with regard to voluntary employee benefits, meaning employees can still get voluntary benefits from the company they have been using for almost 20 years.

Commissioners also ordered an election on the creation of an Emergency Services District for November. County voters will have to revisit the ESD creation because all municipalities did not have it on the ballot last year.

District Clerk Karen Berry shared with commissioners that jury pay is going up and commissioners approved those fees. Jury pay will go up to $20 a day for jury duty and will go up to $60 per day for anyone placed on a jury.

The 2024 Milam County proposed budget has been posted to the Milam County website this week. The budget is expected to raise more money that last year by nearly 9 percent or a little more than $1.38 million. It also lists a proposed tax rate of 61.32-cents per $100 valuation, which is the maximum allowed before sending it to a countywide vote. The no new revenue rate would be 54.53-cents per $100 valuation. 

You can find the budget online at MilamCounty.net.

Whitmire has said that there will be public meetings heald about the county budget and tax rate in the coming weeks and the meetings will be at night.

For more information about the budget see Whitmire’s column on Page 4 of this week’s Cameron Herald.