NOVEMBER 7, 2005

COMMISSIONERS COURT SPEECH

Wednesday a meeting will be held for the budget office.  this department has been a thorn in the side of this county since its inception. it was created under suspicious circumstances  the salaries in this office are  inflated to a ridiculous amount of money, the work is of course duplicated by the auditors office.

with  $122,345  being spent in that department those persons on the ad hoc committee  need to carefully consider their actions and decisions about this department and what it has cost this county.

Expanding government as this administration has done is never good for the taxpayers.  consider closing this department as i have urged you to do for the last year.  this has been discussed by the court before and since the law will allow us to eliminate the department during a specific time period it should be done as soon as possible. 

we have another generator scandal.  port arthur  and  hardin county should have documents that will tell us  exactly where these generators are,  how many  were given to them.  Since the county received the bill  I would think someone on this court would be interested to  solve  the mystery surrounding   these generators.  $221,374 is a lot of money. 

Not only were we price gouged but we have been asked to pay for other governments emergency needs.

Emergency management operations came under questions for not anticipating or researching enough information to head off a problem with debris clean up.  In that office the collective salary plus benefits are $167,670   only 9,790 is spent on expense. 

74,187 was give to the department head.  That’s why they should have the answers.

When I added up the debt we would be paying through 2025, plus the operations  cost through 2006   and using 1.5 million for operations cost,  which will increase,  to complete the debt years,   we will be spending no less  than $161, 948, 416.  on ford park.

If we had the $25,422, 708 from 1999, and adding the debt service and operational cost through 2006,  we would have in our general fund, $58, 210, 386. 

I would think that $161.9 million could have been spent on something much more productive than ford  park. 

At the very least we could have paid for those generators.