Some you win.

I am always amazed how condescending government employees can be when confronted with a public information act request. They explain how they do this every day and attend annual training on the subject.

Take a moment to consider Attorney General Request #459770. An arrest affidavit was requested and when furnished, it had been redacted. Requestor was of the opinion that a document on which a magistrate relied to make a probable cause determination was not subject to redaction.

Please note the person who determined requestor was not entitled to the information was not some lowly clerk making just above minimum wage. Ms. Cost is a licensed attorney and Assistant General Counsel for the Texas Department of Public Safety.

It should be noted the communication related to this request were very professional and no implication otherwise is intended.

The point of this write up is simply that if an attorney can be wrong, and an average citizen prevail in an interpretation of the Texas Public Information Act, why would you take the word of a clerk in your local police department? Why would you rely on the determination by a city manager or your commissioner?

It is pretty common for the Office of the Attorney General to “gig” an agency who makes a request that has already been answered. In the letter above, that “gig” is found in the next to the last paragraph.
I have not read the original request referenced in that paragraph but it appears someone put together a scheme to dispense with dealing with all the annoying public information act requests. It appears the plan was to have an opinion on had so they could simply reject a request with no further scrutiny. The AG doesn’t do that.

  So does it sound like General Counsel Phillip Adkins (pictured left) is following the spirit of the the Texas Public Information Act?

From the Act: The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created. The provisions of this chapter shall be liberally construed to implement this policy.

You have to wonder if Phil ever read that part of the law.

Absence of outrage.

What does $111,525.00 mean to an election?

For fiscal year 20111-2012, Commissioners’ Court authorized a budget of $111,525.00 for courthouse security.


The chart above shows the monthly budget was exceeded by 100% three months into the budget. The chief deputy campaigned for the Republican nomination for Sheriff as an experienced administrator. A novice administrator would have realized if they were spending twice the monthly budget three months into a 12 month budget, it would be prudent to advise the Commissioners’ Court of the potential shortfall.

While that did not happen until the budget was seriously in the red, this is where the real story starts.

The Chief Deputy received the endorsement of a local law enforcement association and some officers of that association were the beneficiaries through working security at the courthouse. Before you consider if the tax money was used to buy an endorsement, read the rest of the story.

The budget came up short by $2,107.50 at the end of April. There has been no real explanation provided for the violation of Texas Local Government Code 111.092.

Sec. 111.092.  DEPARTMENTAL EXPENSES NOT TO EXCEED APPROPRIATIONS.
The county auditor shall oversee the warrant process to ensure that the expenses of any department do not exceed the budget appropriations for that department.

County Auditor Stan Chambers said he advised the Sheriff to advise the Court in response to this request.

No record has been found indicating any member of the Commissioners’ Court was aware of the above letter. Instead, this is what was filed with the Court.

 

The budget information above was provided prior to consideration by the court but some additional information was included in the minutes found on-line.

Even though the email above indicates the information was in the possession of the respondent when the first public information act request was filed, it is not the first time information was withheld but later included in the minutes.

One last interesting point is 19th District Court Judge Ralph Strother appeared before the Commissioners’ Court to petition for additional funding for courthouse security. Judge Strother is the senior judge and basically the boss of the County Auditor. No one asked about compliance with Sec. 111.092. Neither did anyone ask the Judge why, when the Sheriff had established the precedent of expending forfeiture funds to cover deficits in courthouse security and Commissioners’ Court approved adding $50,000.00 to the budget, why was it the responsibility of the Court to pilfer other line items when the money existed.

You can decide for yourself. One explanation would be that the Sheriff could not petition the court for additional funds because that would call into question of his hand picked successor to manage the budget. The Sheriff then used forfeiture funds to cover the deficit to prevent the issue becoming public prior to the May 31st election.

One final note, the budget request for next fiscal year is $75,000.00. The Sheriff made the case that prosecutions by District Attorney Reyna was largely responsible for the increased budget expenditures. It was noted that they were holding two grand juries instead of one. No explanation was offered why it was prudent to reduce the budget by almost 50%. It was additionally noted that no more security expenditures would be necessary because the Sheriff is not going to cover the security with existing personnel. Again, you can decide if this is a direct result of there being no election to buy an endorsement for next year. Perhaps the district attorney is going to reduce crime by 50% next year and the additional courthouse security will not be necessary.

Apparently no McLennan County elected official or candidate is very concerned about it.  Now be a good little taxpayer and forget all about it and go read a story about TomKat divorce.