Matters relating to county clerk may prove costly for county

Hood County News
BY KATHY CRUZ | Senior Staff Writer
October 31, 2022

The county could shift money that might stop the hemorrhaging of Sheriff’s Office employees but the person who holds the tourniquet may not be willing to apply it.

That person is County Clerk Katie Lang, whose Records and Retention Fund, also known as Fund 68, has grown to $1.6 million. The account accrues about $350,000 per year through the payment of fees.

The money cannot legally be diverted to the Sheriff’s Office to increase deputy pay, but County Auditor Becky Kidd has proposed a plan in which some of it could be used to indirectly help the SO.

Lang does not appear to agree with that plan.

Sheriff Roger Deeds told the Hood County News in early October that due to deputies leaving for higher paying jobs, he usually has only four or five deputies to patrol the county’s 437 square miles. He said the department needs at least eight. Ideally, he would like to have enough deputies for them to patrol in pairs for their own safety.

In the weeks since the HCN published the sheriff’s comments, members of the Commissioners Court have received messages from constituents urging them to address the problem, according to Precinct 4 Commissioner Dave Eagle.

At last week’s Commissioners Court meeting, Kidd pleaded with Lang to free up some of her office’s unused money so that it can be used through legal means to help other county departments. Doing so would free up money from Fund 10, the General Fund, which could then be diverted to the SO.

County Clerk Katie Lang
Courtesy: Hood County

Lang and Kidd have different interpretations of laws pertaining to records retention and automation for county offices.

Kidd said that there was no reason why her plan could not be carried out. She asked Lang to “have a heart and just say, yes, I want to help.”

The agenda item, placed on the agenda at the request of Kidd and Precinct 2 Commissioner Ron Cotton, was to “discuss and take appropriate action to utilize Records Management Funds to pay for software invoices, as agreed to in a previous Commissioners Court meeting.” The agenda item stated that the cash balance of the account was $1,638,492.47 as of Oct. 19.

Lang has shared the money before. She listed some of those ways during the July 9, 2021, Commissioners Court meeting when she agreed to pay for her office’s portion of the county’s conversion to Tyler Odyssey software from her records retention account.

However, she hinted that she had not been consulted ahead of time about the agenda item. She noted that she “would like to have been notified or contacted” about the Commissioners Court’s desire for her office to help fund the conversion.

WHO HAS CONTROL?

Local Government Code 203.003 states that Commissioners Courts can establish an account for records management and preservation fees.

By law, those funds must be spent on records management and preservation, or for automation purposes.

Lang indicated that she might want to use some of the funds to restore old, damaged books that hold county records.

“You’re kind of like the auditor that just wants to grab money anywhere they can and use it for their purposes,” she said during an exchange with County Judge Ron Massingill.

Massingill responded that preserving old books wouldn’t “cost anywhere near” $1.6 million.

There were differing views as to whether the law requires county clerks and Commissioners Courts to agree on how records retention money is spent.

Massingill expressed skepticism, stating that surely any impasse could be appealed to a “higher authority.”

“That would just stymie the whole process,” he said of counties being able to put the funds to use.

However, Eagle, Lang, County Attorney Matt Mills, and Precinct 1 Commissioner Kevin Andrews expressed the belief that the money cannot be spent without mutual agreement.

Mills said that the only unsettled question is “whether you’re doing the right thing, or not,” an apparent reference to the request that Lang help the SO for the good of the county.

Andrews stated, “I think we’re at a bit of an impasse here.”

He said that “the only option is persuasion.”

The charged 30-minute discussion ended with the court voting 4-1, with Eagle voting nay, to table the matter to give Mills time to research the law. He stated that he had not been asked to do so ahead of the meeting.

The HCN reached out to Lang via email and phone message to give her an opportunity to provide more information about her stance regarding help for the SO.

Lang responded by email shortly after 4 p.m. Monday.

She referred to her comments at Commissioners Court and stated, "By law, the Records Management and Preservation fee that my office collects, can only be used for specific records management and preservation, including for automation purposes. Not for salaries."

According to Kidd, the money would not be going directly to the SO to pay for salaries.

COSTLY INVOICE

The discussion about the records management funds was mixed with references to an Oct. 21 Tyler Technologies invoice in the amount of $220,750 that will be the subject of a special meeting of the Commissioners Court at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.

That meeting will immediately be followed by another special meeting to discuss a “potential solution to provide for retention and recruitment” of sheriff’s deputies.

The invoice is an added expense as the county prepares to shift to Tyler Odyssey software. According to the agenda item, Lang and Precinct 4 Justice of the Peace Dub Gillum “were included in the original contract but are unwilling to move forward with implementation.”

The refusal resulted in almost a quarter of a million dollars in added costs to the county.

According to a memo to county officials from Tyler Technologies, which the HCN obtained through open records, the county clerk and Precinct 4 JP office will now have to be handled separately and will not be able to go live with other county offices on Dec. 5.

Lang said during the contentious Oct. 25 discussion that she will not be using Tyler Odyssey. She called the conversion process “a debacle.” She indicated a lack of communication and stated that she had been “very accommodating.”

Kidd said that Lang had refused to meet with Tyler representatives.

Massingill noted that Lang had previously agreed to switch to Tyler Odyssey.

“And that was an important consideration for us,” he said. “And every other department in Hood County has switched over to Tyler now except you and Dub Gillum in Precinct 4 JP. Other than those two offices, everybody else has made the conversion. And because the two of ya’ll haven’t, that’s going to cost the county $220,000 and ya’ll get segregated out and put on a different conversion phasing plan. That is not for the benefit nor the good of Hood County.”