Turn around the ESD

In my last post I mentioned I would write about improving the ESD leadership.  On Sunday a more timely story could not have been published as the Cleburne Times-Review ran a front page biography on ESD Director Joey Reed.  It went into great detail on Mr. Reed's history and experience.  Valuable experience.  He's assisted in incidents all over the country and dealt with situations most fire fighters in Johnson County will never see.  There's no doubt he knows emergency response and there may be few in the area that could rival his knowledge. What was not mentioned in the article though was ever running a government entity.  A 40 year GM employee on the assembly line might know all there is to know about building a car, but he shouldn't be the CEO of the company.

I came to the conclusion a while ago that Joey Reed should no longer be the ESD director because of numerous failures in general management over the past year that he's been here.  Based on that I've been of the mind that Mr. Reed should be replaced by a city manager type candidate.  The ESD should seek a director experienced with city manager qualifications.  We need a director that has experience running a government entity.  They would have excellent people skills, know the governing law, work closely with staff to produce budgets and financial projections and be able to provide accurate and timely information to the tax payers and board of directors who should be charged less with micro-managing oversight and more with long-term direction supervision of the organization.

Where then would you get the necessary emergency response knowledge needed to deal with the specifics of the ESD operations?  I have to credit my Joshua city council colleague, Jerry Moore, for mentioning an idea last week that I had previously overlooked. Add a position.  I think Joey Reed would be a good assistant director or some kind of operations manager.  With his knowledge he could be a tremendous asset to a managing director who would take over keeping the ESD on the rails and dealing with the board.  I think the tax payers of the county would find much greater value for our dollars in adding another top position salary.  I'd rather spend another $80,000 on a great director than waste hundreds of thousands on things that may get us nowhere.

As for the board of directors I think they should all be turned over at the conclusion of their respective terms or sooner.  They are just as responsible for the recent failures of the ESD as the director.  Poor accounting practices, missed reporting, budget delays and a lack of financial planning are all excellent reason to relieve a group from the responsibility of managing tax payer funds.  This December concludes the terms of Glenn Reue and Keith Kelley and I hope the county commissioners will consider other qualified candidates.

The Star Group newspapers have reported on the issues with the ESD and the Cleburne Times-Review has very clearly shown Joey Reed's lack of qualifications for his position.  Maybe out of the additional $2 million dollars in this year's budget the ESD board will approve some local newspaper subscriptions for the office to keep up with local goings on.

A.J.