Brownwood News – Brown County Commissioners met Monday morning, April 20, and covered their business agenda in about 15 minutes.
They received an update on COVID-19 from Lisa Dick with the Brownwood/Brown County Health Department. She reported the requests locally for testing for Coronavirus are down and availability of the tests are up in Brown County. Those recovering from positive test results continue to progress, some hitting recovery soon, she said. The health department expects to receive results, possibly today, on two pending tests while another test was taken for submission today.
Commissioners left the Brown County Burn Ban off at this time.
Commissioners approved employee changes in the Sheriff’s Department as submitted by Sheriff Vance Hill. Hill is promoting Jose Rodriguez to the Criminal Investigation Division.
Commissioners approved two donations, one for $80 and another for $50, to the Brown County Sheriff’s Department.
Sheriff Hill then requested approval to purchase jail surveillance cameras for upgrade and repair. Sheriff Hill said it is going to be cost prohibitive to replace the old analog camera system hard drive so his request was to upgrade to a digital camera system at a cost of $53,887.40 from the company Guardian. Hill said he could pay for the system through the inmate phone fund and that way it wouldn’t cost taxpayers any money. Commissioners approved the request which will add 38 total cameras and associated equipment to provide better surveillance of the jail facility.
Sheriff Hill also reported a jail inmate population of 138 as of Monday morning with six of the inmates being on contract from other counties.
