Reckless Spending Not a Priority for Board of Commission

At Monday’s Board Of Commissioner’s meeting, Kelly Robinson said that he didn’t worry about a $200,000.00 dollar budget. Our budget is so large, the small budget for the Coroner’s office is small change. In Mr. Robinson’s mind, the size of the budget doesn’t matter. No need to worry over small amounts of money being misused. Most citizens realize those small amounts will add up.

The county budget is important to the taxpayers. We don’t want to pay for part time employees to drive back and forth to work. There is no reason for someone who lives in another county, and works part time to have that kind of perk. This is just one example of unchecked spending. Also, no one knew who approved a new freezer for the Coroner. The freezer was $24,000.00 and not in the budget.

The latest TAN (tax assessment note) is going to cost Douglas County well over 200,000 dollars to pay back. In early April, our BOC touted a $10,000,000.00 surplus, then 2 weeks later the BOC needed $15,000,000.00 to keep the doors open. Kelly Robinson heads the Finance Committee and he said recently that the county can’t hold tax payer money and they (the BOC) need to spend it as fast as it comes in.

Last night, Chanel 46 ran a story on our BOC. Ramona Jackson Jones threatened the reporter with calling his boss. She was not happy that he brought up the investigation on our Coroner. This is not the first time the BOC or their Communications Director have tried to shut people up. Why are we not allowed to ask questions about spending?