In one fell swoop, members of the City of Brownsville Commission will be asked to approve and authorize the creation of three committees which will take a direct hand in performing audit and oversight of city departments and entities, oversee the budget process and take hand in formulating the city agenda.
The items are for consideration and action in the meeting to be held Tuesday, July 11, 2017, at 6:00 P.M. in the Commission Chambers, on the Second Floor of the Brownsville City Hall – Old Federal Building, located at 1001 East Elizabeth Street.
Most of those functions had been left up to city bureaucrats, but with the approval of these committees, that function will now be overseen and scrutinized by the new committees that will be appointed if passed.
City commissioners have often complained that by the time items arrived before them at city meetings, the proposed agenda items were a fait accompli, with little wiggle room for other options. With the creation of the new committees, the commission will now take a direct hand in scrutinizing the processes that lead to decisions by the city commission.
It is not unusual for department heads and administrators to push for their proposals claiming that the matters before the commissioners are of an urgent nature and cannot be delayed due to time constraints or other considerations.
It will be interesting to see whether the city administration and department heads will chafe under the new scrutiny and whether the committees will enforce the authority to question bureaucratic decisions on their operations, the budget, and the setting of the agenda for commission decisions.
3 comments:
Juan, one of the first things that a new budget committee should consider looking into is the reason as to why does the Finance Director and H.R. Director are getting a $300 monthly car allowance since they don't leave their city hall offices except for lunch? This is total waste of tax payers monies, they should not be allowed to get a car allowance since they don't go anywhere during the day. In fact, the newly appointed committee should carefully review the justifications for other directors getting car allowances since many of them utilize city vehicles as passengers to conduct their travels around the city, they are double dipping at tax payers expense. Hopefully, the new city commissioners will take the time to revisit the car allowance and to this abuse of tax dollars.
Juan, a while back you provided a list of every director who was receiving a car allowance and it aslo included the Purchasing director. Now why in the hell are these directors getting a car allowance since they don't go anywhere during the day but go to lunch? No wonder they owned nice cars at tax payers expense, that is. We truly hope that Commissioners Cesar De Leon and Ben Neece will take the lead and stop this wasteful and unjustifiable use of tax dollars. In fact, all directors should be assigned a city car or be given mileage instead of a car alllowance, if they would be required to submit a monthly mileage report they wouldn't get a penny since they don't go nowhere other than lunch break. Hundreds of thousands of tax dollars can saved over the years if the new Commissioners put an end to this practice which is in reality a smoke screen to give a pay raise. City leaders are always trying to find cost-saving measures, well, here is a good opportunity.
Can you post a current list of employees receiving a car allowance? I wonder if this is true or just plain BS.
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