Collin County transparency takes huge step backwards in 2010 budget meetings

by Bill Baumbach of The Collin County Observer

Despite all the open government rhetoric from the county judge and commissioners, the Collin County Commissioners Court took a giant step backwards in government transparency in this year's budget deliberations.

Last year, the commissioners court held five days of public hearings on the fiscal 2009 budget. Those hearings included presentations by all department heads and by many elected officials. The hearings were held in the commissioners court room, they were video taped, the videos were posted on the web and minutes were taken and also posted on the county's web site.

Not so this year. They took the budget hearing "on the road."

This year, the commissioners court instead scheduled meetings with most departments at the departments' own offices in various locations throughout McKinney. These meetings were held on June 8, June 15, June 22, July 13, July 20, and July 27. While notices of the meetings were, as the law requires, publicly posted, no citizens were in attendance. No video record appears to have been made of any of these meetings (except the first, held on June 8 in the commissioners' court room) and no minutes have been posted.

The commissioners, in effect, gave themselves a free ride to meet outside the public view for five different budget meetings.

Perhaps the no show by taxpayers wasn't entirely the court's responsibility, but posting minutes is.

While minutes for the regular sessions of the commissioners court meetings on June 15, June 22, July 13, and July 20 have been approved by the court and posted on the county's website, none of these minutes make any mention of any budget discussions held on those dates.

Section 551.021 Of the Texas Government Code requires that minutes or a tape recording be made and made public for all open meetings of the commissioner court.

Sec. 551.021. MINUTES OR TAPE RECORDING OF OPEN MEETING REQUIRED. (a) A governmental body shall prepare and keep minutes or make a tape recording of each open meeting of the body.

(b) The minutes must:

(1) state the subject of each deliberation; and

(2) indicate each vote, order, decision, or other action taken.

Sec. 551.022. MINUTES AND TAPE RECORDINGS OF OPEN MEETING: PUBLIC RECORD. The minutes and tape recordings of an open meeting are public records and shall be available for public inspection and copying on request to the governmental body's chief administrative officer or the officer's designee.

As of today, no such minutes of five of these meetings have been posted on the web or sent to the court for approval. I am beginning to doubt they exist. The budget hearing on June 5 (Homeland Security and Fire Marshall) was taped and is posted on the web.

The court will conduct two days of public budget discussions on Monday and Tuesday (August 17 & 18). The two-day meeting will include many of the departments' budgets that were already discussed in the previous non-recorded meetings. What the public will see might be only what the court wants the public to see -- there will be no way for citizens to know what has already been discussed and decided on.

As a part of the budget meetings to be held this week, the court will determine the salary increases for all elected officials. Last year, the court appointed a citizen's committee to recommend elected officials raises -- this year no such panel was appointed, but it is expected that the court will not be granting any salary increases to any elected officials.

The court will also have to give notice of and set the tax rate for FY 2010. No changes to the current rate is expected. After the court approves the new tax rate, it will, in accordance with state law, schedule two public hearings on the tax rate and budget.