For The Record

The Judge was away on county business. Commissioner Precinct 3 Mitchell presided, and for the second time this year the public heard who item 2.A actually appoints, by name and by department. Both times were hers. Both times the Judge was somewhere else.

The Court moved $241,532 to replace a failed uninterruptible power supply in the county’s main data center. Every dollar came out of 2013 bond money and the interest that money earned sitting there. 13 years on the books, and it surfaced because a machine died.

The Sheriff told this Court his 911 center has done the job “shorthanded.” Nobody asked a follow up question.

The child welfare agencies read their numbers into the record. 8,362 reports of child abuse in Denton County last year. 5,879 assigned to a caseworker. One of them asked this Court for one specific thing. The Court thanked everybody and took the photo.

11 of the 13 this year have come from a member of this Court, a county department head, the Sheriff, or his chaplain.

What the prayer said is not the problem and it never has been. The problem is a standing slot on a public agenda that has gone one direction 13 times out of 13, in a room every resident of this county is entitled to sit in as an equal.

A moment of silence takes the same minute.

Commissioner Precinct 2 Falconer moved it. The Chair said “I have a motion and a second.” The record does not contain a second.

Then she read what was in it, before the vote, which is not how this Court has done it since March 3. And she went further. She said the appointment out loud: one order maker, a named employee, in technology services.

That is twice this year a resident could learn who this county is putting into a job through item 2.A. February 24 and today. Commissioner Mitchell was presiding both times, because the Judge was gone both times.

Nothing in the packet made her do it either time. Pages 5 through 7 are the same three sheets this item has carried at every meeting this year: a routing form, the caption printed again, and an unexecuted court order that prints all five members by name and no appointee’s.

It takes 20 seconds. The record shows it takes a particular person in the chair.

$59,474 in excess funds from a 2013 tax note project for network access control. $147,435 in excess funds from 2013 permanent improvement bonds for a court building data center. $34,623 in interest those 2013 bonds earned.

The Chair read all three figures and the total. Motion, second, unanimous, no discussion.

Here is the question nobody asked. If $241,532 of unspent 2013 money was available on short notice to cover an emergency in 2026, how much more of it is there?

Voters approved that debt for named projects 13 years ago. Some of those projects came in under budget, which is fine, and the leftovers have been earning interest since, which is also fine. What is not fine is that the public only learns any of it exists when a machine fails and the county needs the money in a hurry.

Publish what is left in the old bond and tax note funds, project by project, once a year. Residents paid for that debt. They are entitled to know what is still sitting in it.

In 2025 the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services received 8,362 reports of child abuse in Denton County. 5,879 of those were assigned to a caseworker. One organization served 642 children last year, an 11% increase over the year before. Another is currently serving about 320 children in this county. 84% of the children who exited care in 2025 went home to a parent or to family.

One of them made a specific request from that podium: they are short of volunteer advocates, and they asked this Court to help recruit them. Her words were that a shortage last year limited the case management they could give each child.

That is a request a Commissioners Court can act on. Direct staff to put it on the county’s channels. Put it in the next newsletter. Name the sign up link from the dais. Any of that takes one sentence and costs nothing.

What happened instead: four members said thank you, the Chair said she wished she could fire all of them because she wishes the need did not exist, they voted the proclamation, and everybody went down for a photo.

The proclamation is fine. The work those agencies described is real and it is theirs. But an organization stood in that room and told this Court exactly what it needed, and the Court did not take the one step that was free.

Then Denton County Sheriff Tracy Murphree described how his people handled it. “They’ve done it shorthanded. They’ve done it with things going wrong, with towers going down.”

Shorthanded. At a public meeting, from the elected official who runs the center, to the four people who set his budget.

Nobody asked how short. Nobody asked how long. Nobody asked what it would cost to fix. The next thing anybody said was thank you.

This is the same Court that has moved money into jail overtime three separate times this year because that building cannot staff itself either. When the Sheriff volunteers the word shorthanded about the people who answer 911, that is not a compliment to accept. It is a number to go get.