ESD Public Hearing #1

Tonight is the first of two required public hearings regarding the proposed tax rate increase by the Johnson County Emergency Services District.  Tonight's hearing and then next week's hearing on the 9th will be your opportunity to voice your opinion on whether or not the ESD should proceed in adopting the 100% increased $.06 rate.

The current proposed budget has a line item for Fire Fighter Staffing.  The value there is presently "xxxxxx", but $800,000 has been mentioned.  This proposition would have the ESD hiring full-time fire fighters to be placed in yet to be determined fire departments in the district.  That might seem like a good idea on the surface, but it leaves the door open to serious chain of command and conflict resolution issues having an employee of a government entity working, supposedly, under the direction of either the fire chief of a municipality or the fire chief of one of the county fire departments which are private corporations.  If taxpayer funded fire fighter staffing is pursued the funding needs to be provided directly to the fire departments to hire their own fire fighters.  That wouldn't fit into the empire the ESD is attempting to build at our expense though.

Going beyond the fact that we're now less than 30 days from the start of the new fiscal year and the ESD has yet to figure out what to do with the $1 million dollars left over in the proposed budget do you really want to give more of your tax money to an entity that still doesn't have a solid spending plan now 6 months after they started campaigning to double the tax rate?  This is Johnson County, Texas not Washington D.C..  This board of directors needs to adopt a lower tax rate for 2010-2011 and take a year to formulate a responsible plan and then come back and ask for the money if we approve.  That will give them some time to show that they're serious about accountability by hitting the deadlines for financial reporting that they so neglectfully missed this year.

At least we may have a start to improving the financial situation in the district after last night's executive session.  While no statement has been released detailing last night's action I'm hopeful that at least one person responsible for mishandling the books will no longer be employed at the ESD.

Of course all the blame for the negative light on the ESD is my fault I learned last night.  Upon my arrival to the ESD office I overheard one of the board members ask another "Is that the guy that's been causing all the problems"?  To answer your question, sir, "no".  Your board of directors and executive director are the ones causing all the problems.  I'm just the one pointing them out.

A.J.