Is anybody in there?

In a Waco Trib article. 

The county’s newly appointed criminal associate judge said he may not take the position after the commissioners court set his salary at a lower rate than he anticipated.

I have a smiley face sticker for anyone who can explain why we have 10 candidates for county commissioner and three more not running for office and not one could come up with what seems a really simple solution.

There are 8 justice of the peace courts. Two district courts and two county court at law courts. Any of the presiding judges could do the arraignments of prisoners at the jail.

So we have 12 “magistrates” on the taxpayer tit already. It seems simple. If you think it necessary to fund this position, $200,000.00 seems reasonable for an associate judge budget. All you have to do is add up all the budgets of the 12 existing courts, determine what percentage the extra $120K would be and give the existing courts the option.  The 12 courts can fill the duties and have the currently funded $80K distributed equitably among them or have their budgets cut to offset the needed funds.

This is what RESPONSIBLE taxpayers do when the have an unexpected expense or want to buy something not in the budget. The economy is screwed because people borrowed the money to finance things they had no ability to pay for.  This is the course the court has pursued in the past.  The court suffers no such disability since there is plenty of money.

 

The county budget is on line. Pretty simple to find the information. The commissioners should probably reduce the budget of the “budget director” by 10 percent just because he did not offer this solution. The key to public office is not to be a rocket scientist (can I get a hell yea) but to hire the best possible people to work for you.

The whole associate judge deal has back room deal all over it. The opinion by the District Attorney that the former magistrate was in violation of the Texas Constitution was drafted in August 2011. Prior to the budget approval by the court and the District Judges / County Court at Law Judges didn’t appear to have any problem with ignoring the Texas Constitution.