Commissioners approve cloud storage contract for sheriff data and allow surplus, trade-in and destruction of automatic weapons

McLennan County commissioners on Tuesday approved two items affecting sheriff's operations: a master customer agreement for cloud storage of in‑house records and actions to dispose of surplus automatic weapons. Cloud storage: County IT and the sheriff's office recommended moving on-premises recorded-evidence storage to Motorola cloud services after repeated failures of an on-prem server. "This is the cloud storage for the, on prem server that we have that has been having, major issues, and this is what IT has recommended that we transition to," Dustin (county staff) said. The court authorized the master services agreement and related quote, and authorized budget adjustments discussed elsewhere on the agenda to account for the ongoing service fees. Automatic-weapons surplus and disposition: The sheriff's office requested that a list of automatic firearms be declared surplus. County counsel and staff described options: outright destruction or a controlled trade-in to a licensed firm that would remove non-resellable components (e.g., select-fire components) for destruction and return legal, sellable parts in exchange; the county would then destroy the unretainable components. Staff explained the automatic firearms are post‑ban machine guns that cannot be privately owned and must be rendered unusable. The court approved declaring the items surplus and authorized the trade-in/disposition approach presented by the sheriff. County counsel explained the trade-in approach yields some usable, legally resellable parts but that the full automatic firearms or prohibited components would be destroyed. The court recorded that any transfers will comply with federal and state law. Sale of a retiring deputy's duty rifle: Separately, the court approved the sale of a retiring deputy's duty rifle to the deputy for the fair-market value of $600, citing Government Code section 614.051 as the authority for sale of county property to employees on retirement. Ken Bass explained the market value assessment and sought court approval; the court approved the sale. Next steps: Staff will finalize the Motorola cloud contract and add related recurring costs to the FY2026 budget. For weapon disposition, the sheriff's office will coordinate with a licensed vendor for parts-removal and arrange lawful destruction of prohibited components and provide the court with a return report when the process is complete.