Commissioners field questions about EMS training facility construction

Concerns and questions were raised by the Calhoun County Commissioners Court regarding the construction and funding of a recently completed EMS training facility during meetings held April 22-23. Primarily, commissioners questioned Calhoun County EMS Director Dustin Jenkins for failing to receive court approval on items such as construction, contracting and budgeting.

According to Calhoun County Judge Vern Lyssy, concerns surfaced after Jenkins asked the court to repurpose parts of the EMS budget to cover facility costs, which exceeded the initial budget by approximately $75,000.

“When the training facility came up as an agenda item, commissioner David Hall asked, ‘Why was this not brought to us?’” Lyssy said. “That was a good question, so we had a workshop, and we did not approve the initial agenda item. The whole idea of the workshop was to bring everyone onto the same page. I think Jenkins got the message, but down the road, we may not consider situations such as this because of the predicaments it could have created.”

Once reviewed by commissioners, several issues regarding proper procedure in contract creation were noted — several contracts had been signed by Jenkins and a line of credit with Amazon Business had been opened. According to Lyssy, all contracts and lines of credit require approval by the court prior to signature.

“Anytime you sign a contract, anytime you put a signature down or pay a bill, it has to go to the court,” Lyssy said.

The reason for these protocols, Calhoun County Assistant Attorney Arnold Hayden explained during the April 23 meeting, is to prevent fraud and protect taxpayer dollars. He said allowing commissioners to approve these items ensures transparency in government affairs.

“We need to know about all this because your employees could commit fraud,” Hayden said. “These rules are in place to protect you against that. They’re not to slow you down, but to protect the county.”

During both the April 22 and 23 meetings, Jenkins apologized for failing to bring the expenses before the court. He was denied permission to use funds from the staffing account to cover the remaining balance on the project, but was approved to reallocate funds from other areas of his budget.

“He spent the money, so it has to come out of his budget somewhere,” Lyssy said. “Some departments with a lot of employees have vacancies — say three positions aren’t filled from January to June. That’s half a year of payroll that isn’t being used and won’t be used. But we don’t allow them to even consider using those funds until October, because if they fill those positions, they come up short on payroll. There were three other accounts he could move money from, and that is allowed.”

“When an auditor catches this and calls us, and we have to send it over to the judge, it makes it look like you’re trying to hide something,” Hayden said. “You didn’t do anything wrong, but waiting until an auditor caught it instead of being transparent from the start creates concern. We all have to protect the county.”

Lyssy said the lack of court approval was an error, more reflective of Jenkins’ lack of knowledge about construction procedures than any bad intent.

“I do apologize for this. I am not excusing myself whatsoever,” Jenkins said.

“We’re trying to make you aware of where we’re coming from,” Lyssy added. “We want to hit the pause button and see what’s going on. Like Commissioner Hall said the other day, we’re accountable. We have to be able to [have an] answer for everything.”

“At Magnolia Beach, in preparation for our new fire station, we were going to lose all of our equipment storage,” Hall said. “We couldn’t absorb it all in one budget, so we stretched it back three or four years. If you’re going to keep things in your budget, don’t operate at a risk.”

Jenkins was selected as contractor for the training facility in 2023 and was awarded a $275,000 grant by the M.G. and Lillie A. Johnson Foundation for the construction of the training facility during a court meeting held in November of that year.

“I want to thank you guys for allowing me to be the contractor for this project. It was a learning experience,” Jenkins said.

No punitive action was taken by the commissioners court against Jenkins. For more information on the Calhoun County Commissioners Court, visit www.calhouncotx.org.