THE SPECTATOR: WHAT THE JUDGE REALLY MEANT

  

If you read the answers that Washington County Judge John Durrenberger gave to my questions about a variety of topics, you may have had the same reaction as I did.  “Huh”?  Is a bunch of political speak the best he could do after six days of contemplating the answers?  Well, I’m here to try to interpret the Judge’s convoluted responses and tell you what he really means.

To the question of whether they have a plan to turn around the increasing losses in the EMS Department, Judge Durrenberger said the auditor stated that the subsidy for EMS since 2021 “is headed in the right direction and is already trending down”.  Perhaps the Judge was misinformed about what the auditor said, since he wasn’t at that meeting.  So, here’s what the auditor really said:

Judge, even if the EMS Department losses are not as big this year as last, that doesn’t mean the deficit hole is getting smaller.  It’s still growing.  What the Judge is really saying is that he and the Commissioners are happy to stick their heads in the sand and not listen to their own independent auditor.

On the question of how they can project EMS collections in 2024 to be $3.5 million, when they only collected about a third of that amount in the first half of this year….the Judge’s answer was “the number was arrived at by projecting the number of patient transports (at $8500 per patient transport average), and projections calculated by their billing company.”  What the Judge is really saying is that they plan to make more money by doing more patient transports, all the while keeping their fingers crossed that the insurance companies will start paying the County what they are asking.  Despite already having more than a year of experience in trying to collect for those transports, the Judge is saying he is going to just keep projecting those inflated numbers until they somehow magically come true. 

To date, Washington County has spent almost $600,000 to house inmates in Waller County due to a shortage of jailers.  In answer to the question about whether the Judge and Commissioners Court have a plan to fill those positions, he blamed the Texas Jail Commission’s ratio requirement for the number of corrections officers to inmates.  Uh, Judge, that ratio has been in place since 2009.  Nothing has changed.  The Judge also stated that those “hundreds of thousands of dollars have mostly been covered by the unused salaries and benefits due to the Corrections Officers vacancies”.  Wow, what a unique concept.  You don’t hire more jailers, you just use what you would have spent on them to pay another county to house your inmates.  Genius! 

On the question of why a perimeter security fence for the jail is not in next year’s budget even though the Sheriff has been asking for one since 2019, and the Commissioners Court awarded a contract for one, and then cancelled it…the Judge answered “the fence was not a budgeted expense paid by property tax payers, because it is a planned ARPA Fund expense.”  He said the Court plans to wait until after the completion of the jail kitchen remodel before reconsidering a fence.  What he really means is they have no plans at all to build a security fence at the jail no matter where the funds come from.  Judge, if you haven’t done it in the last four years, I sincerely doubt you plan to do it in the fifth.  And your excuse is going to be that you’ve already spent all of the millions of dollars in ARPA money, and the fence “is not in the budget.” Had the Commissioners not given themselves ten percent raises and hired a Public Information Officer for $100,000, they might be able to afford a security fence for the jail.

Tomorrow, I’ll interpret some more of Judge Durrenberger’s answers for you, and I’ll have some additional important questions for the Judge.

And that’s the way it looks to this Spectator.