Karnes County’s Commissioners Court heard a report from Donald Dugosh regarding waste and trash management issues during their April 8 meeting.

For their review, Dugosh shared and left with the county officials two binders of information and procedures that he said had proved quite useful when he worked with the same issues. They consist of information concerning the collection of brush, trash and landfill management.

County Judge Alger Kendall, Jr. and the commissioners thanked Dugosh and stated they "would look over and consider what could be applied to the County’s Trash and Brush Collection Station."

The court approved authorizing the advertisement for an employee benefit package (health/life) bids for county employees for fiscal year 10/1/08-9/30/09. This is an earlier start for the bidding in order to have additional time to make their selection.

The county burn ban issue was again discussed with officials taking no further action at this time but leaving the current one in effect until the time limit in place expires.

John Banks, a property tax attorney with the Perdue, Brandon, Fielder, Collins & Mott, L.L.P. firm presented a report to the court on the status of several county past due tax cases. Some are working out a payment agreement while others will be heading into a lawsuit court case.

"Several involve very old buildings on properties that have changed owners or businesses over the years and that require tracking and finding out those who indeed are responsible for the tax debts," Banks said.

Checking on the true title holders takes time, Banks explained. In cases of environmental issues, the collection and/or selling the property for collection purposes becomes very costly. Some are residential sites in the same status. He said they were making progress and he would report back to the court again to update this matter.

A report from the county’s business office showed that several areas of the county’s financial budget are close to spending all of the year’s allotted budget for their areas. Rising fuel and utilities costs are the main reason for the pending shortfall. County officials were asked to consider, if possible, how to amend the budget before this happens and to look at next year’s budget with rising costs and inflation possibilities in mind. The officials agreed that they will have to tighten their budgets until they can alleviate this problem.