DALLAS COUNTY, Texas — At the end of August 2023, around the time he gave his State of the County address, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins called his county “a mess.”
Four months later, Dallas County continues to deal with many of the same issues that led the judge to express his frustration in the first place.
The county is still looking for an auditor who oversees the payment of county employees and vendors after a months-long software issue that led to short, wrong, and sometimes missing payments to both groups. While employee paychecks have been corrected, for the most part, vendor payments are still facing some problems.
District judges, however, appoint the Dallas County auditor, not Dallas County commissioners.
Still, Jenkins calls finding a new auditor and a new county IT director, which commissioners are responsible for, priorities for 2024.
“We’re working together. There’s good collaboration there. And we’ve got good outside consultants. I feel good that most of those problems have been corrected, and we’re on the right track,” Jenkins told us on Inside Texas Politics.
In January, Dallas County commissioners will receive a report about the state of the county’s aging, and near-capacity, jail.
Jenkins tells us he thinks the county will begin working on a new jail soon.
It will have to be within four miles of the Dallas County Courthouse, and if he were building a new jail today, Jenkins says he wouldn’t place it in its current location between the city’s two signature bridges and where the new Harold Simmons Park will be located.
“That’s our new front door. It was not great valued land 30, 40 years ago. But now it’s our front door. So, let’s clean up our front door,” explained Jenkins. “Maybe we use that for some really good, smart green development. And let’s get our jail, still close to the courthouse, but in an area where it’s not viewed by everyone who comes to Dallas.”
A groundbreaking is planned for Simmons Park in 2024.
Jenkins says he’ll also focus on jobs, improving healthcare in the county, and finding more ways to collaborate with schools to address mental health and substance abuse.
The goal, he says, is to catch kids at an earlier age before their problems get worse
“What we see with our kids is these troubles tend to manifest themselves in more kids around the ninth grade. And if we can get to those kids with a race-neutral risk assessment in middle school, so that if a child is beginning to exhibit signs of depression or anxiety or a more serious underlying illness, we give them the help that they need early through peer support, through connecting them with UT Southwestern and through the great school counselors we already have at DISD,” Jenkins said.
In order to accomplish that, Jenkins says they’ll first start with a pilot program at six middle schools before deciding whether to scale up.
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