Guest Column
by the LONGVIEW NEWS JOURNAL
In today’s environment of leaner budgets and increased taxes, it is important for elected officials to remember whose money is resting in their coffers and every penny must be accounted for and all spending justified.
While voters chose to elect individuals to oversee the running of the city, county, school and state, it is the hired administrators who take care of the day-in and day-out business of keeping the wheels turning and services available. While elected officials place their faith in hired administrators to conduct business properly, voters do not intend to simply open the purse strings and allow tax dollars to flow uncontrolled and unaccounted.
A bill filed by State Rep. Angie Chen Button, R-Richardson, aims to unlock the bank and give governmental bodies greatly increased authority to spend public funds without public oversight.
House Bill 679 allows a governing body to grant authority to an official or employee responsible for purchasing or for administering a contract to approve a change order that involves an increase or decrease of $50,000 or less. That is a significant increase from the present $25,000 threshold which all governmental entities must adhere to before seeking approval from the elected governing body.
Button claims the increase is needed to offset rising costs of conducting regular business, due to inflation. Government lobbyists have used that argument of adjusting for inflation for a couple of sessions and will most likely sing the same song this session.
While voters go about their everyday lives trusting city, county and school officials to conduct the people’s business in the best and most honest manner possible – and the majority of them do - voters do want someone to be held accountable when it comes to spending tax dollars.
House Bill 679 could give non-elected administrators broader latitude where tax dollars are concerned and take elected officials out of the picture, thus leaving voters with little or no say in how their money is spent. In effect, government purchasers could avoid any public scrutiny, including in some cases, even elected officials, because the purchase would then be lumped in with other invoices, which too often become part of a consent agenda item, and quickly approved by elected officials without discussion or review.
The bill also has the potential to open the door to possible preferential treatment/punishment of outspoken business owners with zoning issues or other political issues with the administrator of a local governing entity where local purchases of goods or services is concerned.
Rep. Button should reconsider HB 679, so elected officials – those people hired directly by the people’s vote – are left with the responsibility of authorizing major purchases with tax dollars.
Reprinted with permission from the Longview News-Journal
