While the county is well within its contract with Cellular One, an examination of county cell phone records identified in a recent report by County Auditor Keith Barber show that minutes and text messages are being used more frequently by some county employees than others.

Barber's report, given at an October commissioners court meeting, revealed that some county cell phones have been used in an excessive and perhaps, personal manner, prompting commissioners to establish a four-man committee to review the county cell phone policy. The committee met Tuesday and is continuing to work on adjusting the policy, according to commissioner Jim Elder, who serves on the committee, along with fellow commissioner Tom Strickland, Nacogdoches County Sheriff Thomas Kerss and Barber.

"The policies were already written, but they really hadn't been enforced, and that is what the auditor brought to us," Elder said. "We have this policy, and we have some areas of gray that look like there might be something to look into."

Records show cell phones for county law enforcement and environmental health and maintenance service offices used the most text messages throughout the billing cycle of Sept. 13, 2009, while phones from the sheriff's office, precinct 4 county constable's office and Commissioner Reggie Cotton used the most minutes for the month, each with usages of well over 3,000 minutes. The county has more than 50 cell phones, the bulk of which used between 200 and 1,000 minutes for the billing period.

Cotton, who used 3,653 minutes for the billing period, the most out of anyone in the county, said when he makes calls and gets an answering machine, he will leave his cell phone as a way for people to call him back.

"Many times, I'll get a message from the office to call someone, and maybe they've been on their lunch break, and I call them back and can't get a hold of them ... I'll leave my cell phone number with them."

Cotton said each and every person in his precinct or anyone who calls him on county issues is privy to his county cell phone number.

"I'm an elected official, and they have a right to have it," he said. "I feel that is very important."

He also said there are times where he will have someone who will call and leave a name, but not a number, and if he's out in the field working with no other way to locate their telephone number, he will call directory assistance to get back in touch with them, which accounts for quite a few of the calls, according to the records.

"I'll call directory assistance to get back with them," he said. "My main concern is making sure that my constituents are taken care of, and I'm within my range of minutes."

Strickland, the only other commissioner with a county-issued cell phone, and County Judge Joe English, both used less than 1,000 minutes for the billing period. Barber said it's up to the discretion of the commissioner to be issued a county cell phone. Elder and Commissioner Jerry Don Williamson do not have county cell phones. Cotton's wife is also on the plan, but the county bills Cotton and he pays for the charges each month.

Nacogdoches County Constable Precinct 4 Jason Bridges, whose office had one cell phone that used 3,042 minutes for the billing period, said 90 percent of the communication he and his deputies have is on county-issued cell phones.

"The reason being because I don't have a secretary or anyone to answer my phones at the office, and a large percentage of people have my cell phone number," he said, adding that the number is even given out on his office line's voice mail. "Our cell phones are not for personal use; they're for law enforcement use only, and that's what we use them for."

Like many of the other county law enforcement agencies, Bridges said the text messages he and his deputies send out are for a variety of different reasons.

"We're in meetings constantly, and of course, when we're in a meeting situation, you can't have your phone on, or if you're in court waiting to testify, you can't (use your phone). Being of the technology age that we're in, we have other ways to communicate ... We communicate through text messaging."

Bridges said he has tried to reduce the amount of text messages his deputies use because he knows it's something the commissioners have previously talked about. A comparison of phone records from the Aug. 13, 2009, billing period show the number of text messages has been slightly reduced.

"We've tried to reduce it. But sometimes you've got to communicate, and sometimes you don't have cell phone service but you can get a text message out. Sometimes I'm in a meeting and my guys are out doing something and they've got to tell me. They know I'm in a meeting because I've told them, so they'll text message me what's going on, and I do the same back. Sometimes it's just a 'have to' situation. That's basically the only time that we use it. We're not using it for personal use."

Likewise, environmental health and maintenance director Bennie Serrano, who had 177 outgoing text messages for the billing period, said most of the text messages he sends or receives are in regards to complaints on equipment that needs to be fixed. County employees are not charged for incoming text messages.

"We also have emergency situations where we might use them in bad weather, where we're in an area that might not have any reception," he said. "Because a lot of times, even when you have one bar of reception on your cell phone ... a lot of (text messages will) go through to where you can communicate for some given reason."

Serrano said it seems like he's been utilizing text messaging more because he is "more comfortable with it, rather than having to sit there and have a large conversation."

Records show a few county cell phones issued to sheriff's office deputies and jail employees also used an unusually high number of minutes for the billing cycle.

"By the nature of what we do, we have some people that you need 24-hour call-out capabilities, like investigators, myself, chief deputy, etc. If you have an emergency or a major crime, you want to be able to reach them pretty much anytime night or day," said Kerss.

He said while investigators and a few others in his office have county cell phones issued specifically to them, patrol officers rotate phones and can have as many as four individuals making calls from them over a given month.

"For patrol purposes, we use the phones as a back up plan to our radio communication system," Kerss said. "Sometimes, when a complainant calls in, they want to be contacted by telephone rather than physical contact, and depending on where the officer is, it would be more advantageous to use the cell phone to call them than it is for them to drive 10 or 15 miles back to the office."

Kerss, who is also on the committee examining the cell phone policy, noted the cell phone rotation his patrol officers use could change.

The committee still has a few more meetings before it will present a proposal to the commissioners court, committee members said. Elder said the work done thus far, in addition to identifying parts of the cell phone policy that need to be reworded, also enabled the auditor to find some charges that Cellular One had as a monthly recurring charge that will save the county close to $1,500 per year.