County Commissioners Court Briefs
Proposed county budget to include mental health program Young County Judge Win Graham said he will present a budget for fiscal year 2024 that includes matching grant funding for a proposed mobile mental health team that will serve the County’s mental health consumers. The $1.35-million, two-year program to provide inhome monitoring and crisis intervention for mental health consumers has been successful in larger Texas counties but would be the first of its kind for a rural county, local officials said.
“We didn’t approve a number, per se, but [the Commissioners] basically had no objection to building it into the proposed budget,” Judge Graham said in an interview. Judge Graham met with the mayors of Olney and Graham to discuss
BY GINA KEATING | EDITOR
splitting the estimated $135,000 match in their upcoming budgets, and plans to speak to the County’s other taxing entities about taking on some of the costs, he said. The County would apply for the grant under a new state program that provides funding for mental health maintenance programs. If the grant is approved, the mobile mental health team would begin operating in 2024.
County tightens burn ban, faces firefighter shortage County Commissioners tightened a 90-day burn ban by removing language in the boilerplate ban notice that allows burning for agricultural purposes after area volunteer fire departments reported that the ag exception was being abused.
“County Commissioners are trying to emphasize how serious the fire danger is by removing all conditions for burning for the next 90 days,” Judge Win Graham said of the July 11 burn ban.
Young County volunteer fire departments responded to grass fires nearly every day leading up to the Independence Day holiday. Fires at Graham Lake and Possum Kingdom threatened homes but were brought under control before any damage was done, he said.
Young County is among 83 counties that have enacted burn bans, including all surrounding counties but Stephens County, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service website. Triple-digit temperatures will continue to cause surface fuels to dry and grasses to wilt, increasing ignition potential in the afternoon hours, the Forest Service said.
The active wildfire season comes as rural Texas faces a shortage of volunteer firefighters. The number of volunteer firefighters has dropped in counties where populations are declining and aging, according to a report in the Texas Tribune.
Judge Graham said Young County “absolutely” has a problem recruiting volunteer firefighters because “people can’t make a living in full-time agriculture anymore, so the people that traditionally are volunteer firemen, they have nine-to-five jobs so they can’t be volunteer firefighters.”
“Unfortunately, volunteer fire departments are heading towards extinction because there aren’t people who can do that job,” he said.