JUDGE’S COMMENTS
Have you ever wondered what your county judge really does on a day to day basis? It would be impossible to know unless you actually had the job. But I can tell you that it is a lot.
The job has two primary duties: to oversee the affairs of Milam County and to preside over our County Court. Both take a lot of fortitude. The affairs of the county are frankly massive. We have over 170 full time employees and many part time employees with an annual budget of around $15 million.
We have about 800 miles of roads, much equipment and many, many buildings to maintain. The budget is always tough, because there is never enough money to do all the things that need to be done.
Should it be spent on health care, roads, water, IT, buildings, salaries, new employees or maybe even a county animal shelter. All of these and hundreds more are taken into consideration.
In the last couple of months our commissioners court, which meets at least twice a month has taken on many tough issues and has enacted several new ordinances to make our county a better place to live and work, including those to help with the cleanup, mobile home parks and flooding.
The court has held several workshops to consider issues such as a tax abatement for a new solar project and the relocation of our county offices. The list goes on.
In addition, there is our Constitutional County Court, which adjudicates almost 500 cases a year. This includes a civil docket, a criminal docket, a probate docket and a guardianship docket.
In the last two weeks, I presided over a criminal trial, a civil trial, 12 probate cases, 2 guardianship cases and 39 criminal cases.
It takes a lot of coordination between our fine county clerk, district attorney and sheriff to docket the cases, provide security, impanel a jury and get the prisoners to the courthouse. By the way, we say thanks to all of those fine citizens who were summoned and appeared for jury duty. Our court system simply does not work without a jury.
The county judge is an administrator one day and a Judge the next. One day it is the budget, the next day it is putting someone in jail. One day it is an irate taxpayer, the next day it is marrying a young couple.
One day it is a leaking roof, the next appointing a guardian for an incompetent ward. There are no dull moments and little spare time. What an honor and challenge it is to be your county judge.
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