Court Opinion

ID: 9771185
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:36:16.430434+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:26.808128
License: Public Domain

KOEHLER, Justice,
concurring.
Although I agree with the majority opinion in its conclusions, I would make it clear and emphasize in connection with Point of Error No. Two that Commissioners Court went further than necessary when on March 3,1993 it approved the motion of Commissioner Hoo-ten which designated not only specific records preservation projects in the County Clerk’s office (an action within its discretion) but also designated specific employees and the percentage of them salaries and benefits who and which it required to be paid out of the records preservation fund as well (an action beyond its discretion).
TexLoc.Gov’t Code Ann. § 118.0216 states that the fee collected by the County Clerk for “Records Management and Preservation” under Section 118.011 “may be used only to provide funds for specific records preservation and automation projects.” It is not clear what the word “projects” means in its statutory context. The dictionary defines “project” among other things as “a planned undertaking” such as “a definitely formulated piece of research.” Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (Merriam 1980). Another dictionary defines the word as “an undertaking requiring concerted effort.” American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin 1985). Thus, whenever an employee of the county clerk is assigned a specific task or duty relating to records preservation, I would take it that the employee is engaged in a records preservation project. As the Court’s opinion makes clear, it is the duty and responsibility of the County Clerk to designate what constitutes preservation of records and automation in his office and to assign his employees specific tasks, all or some of which may relate to records preservation and automation. He does not, however, have the unbridled discretion to expend money out of the Records Management and Preservation Fund as he sees fit.
It is the Commissioners Court that has the budgetary duty and responsibility of allocating all county funds, including ear-marked funds such as the one involved here. In order to carry out this duty, it necessarily follows that the Commissioners Court must make the initial determination from information furnished by the County Clerk and/or from its own independent study of what kinds of work constitute “preservation of records and automation.” See TexAtt’y Gen. LA-81 (1992).1 I would not presume to tell the members of the Commissioners Court how to go about making this determination and yet avoid attempting to designate or dictate the specific duties and responsibilities of deputy clerks. There are undoubtedly several ways this can be accomplished without running afoul of constitutional and statutory prohibitions.

. In her summary, the assistant attorney general stated in part: "The county commissioners court has sole discretion to determine how the county will spend revenues generated by ... [the records preservation and management fees] ..., so long as the court uses the fee for the purpose stipulated in section 118.0216 of the Local Government Code: ‘specific records preservation and automation projects.’ Whether a particular project is a ‘specific records preservation and automation project’ is an issue that the county commissioners court must decide in the first instance." Tex.Att'y Gen. LA-81 (1992).