The Hays County Commissioners Court approved courtroom improvements during Tuesday’s meeting.
The court unanimously approved — with Precinct 2 Commissioner Mark Jones absent — the county judge to execute a $25,899 proposal from Beckwith Electronic Systems, LLC for replacement of audiovisual equipment in county courtrooms #1, #3, and #4.
According to the agenda item, “During a recent inspection, it was discovered that some of the a/v equipment is not functional and/or at end of life. It is cost prohibitive to repair the older equipment; therefore, the District Judges would like to replace equipment as needed. Funding for this project has been identified in the County & District Court Technology Fund.”
In other business, the court approved location of office spaces for the Indigent Defense Coordinator and the Records Management Office within the Hays County Government Center.
The Indigent Defense Coordinator will take over the space currently occupied by Records Management
The Indigent Defense Coordinator will be located at Suite 2024 in the Government Center, which Records Management currently uses for scanning purposes. Record Management will relocate scanning into the area it uses within the Law Library office at the Government Center.
The court also took action to approve the county judge to execute an Interlocal Agreement with the National Cooperative Purchasing Alliance (NCPA) to provide cooperative purchasing services for Hays County.
According to the agenda item, “the NCPA is a leading national government purchasing cooperative program working to reduce the cost of goods and services by leveraging the purchasing power of public agencies in all 50 states. NCPA utilizes state of the art procurement resources and solutions that result in cooperative purchasing contracts that ensure all public agencies are receiving products and services of the highest quality at the lowest prices.”
“It sounds like a good opportunity to be efficient,” County Judge Ruben Becerra said. “I couldn’t argue with that.”
“Anytime we can get additional purchasing power unrelated to how small our county is, I think it’s a good thing,” Precinct 4 Commissioner Walt Smith added.