Is incompetence an emergency?

It appears McLennan County Commissioners believe incompetence constitutes an emergency.

Buried in the annual budget is a line item for “contingency”. This has long been a bone of contention by observers who characterize it as an administrative slush fund. To justify the position they point out the money is not allocated for anything. Government officials point to catastrophic events like tornados ripping the roof off the coliseum.

A couple of weeks ago, McLennan County Auditor Stan Chambers called it an emergency fund and said it is up to Commissioners’ Court to determine what constitutes and emergency.

Two weeks ago, the Sheriff’s office submitted a budget amendment to raid the emergency fund for $385,000.00. The big concern was that if you do the math, there is not enough money in the emergency fund to cover the potential liabilities for outside housing of prisoners.

That made me wonder what else Commissioners had determined was an “Emergency”. The more I looked the more shocking it became.

There is a computer purchase which was eliminated from the budget, a $5,000.00 raise for the assistant budget director, a $3,000.00 dryer that was shipped to the privately run jail. The list goes on and on.