What a week. On Tuesday, Commissioners’ Court voted to buy the County Judge a new desk and chair for the tidy sum of $3,900.00. It was rushed through in summary motion with little comment. When you are talking about a $116M budget, $3900 might not seem like much. Consider, however, this is tax payer money. The court represented this money was needed to pay for court appointed attorneys to represent those who could not defend themselves. Consider further, the same court raided the County rainy day fund (contingency fund) to put money in another account for what..? Court appointed attorneys. So while voting to allocate funds for a REALLY nice desk and chair, well, you get the picture.
This took place in a public meeting. How was it handled? Was there a gasp in the gallery when it was announced the Judge needed a new desk and chair he neglected to include in his budget request? Nope! because the only reference in court was..well listen to the judges own words.
By voting in support of this, Commissioners’ determined this was in the best interest of the County. I would have liked to see my Commissioner stand up and tell the Judge the appropriate place for this request was in the budget not shuffling funds from another line item.
