Washington County government seems to be going through a dysfunctional phase.
It isn't the first time that has happened. Nor will it be the last. Government at any level can be clumsy. And it invariably looks worse when the parties involved are squabbling.
That is the case now as the local Quorum Court is reining in control of the county budget.
While some of the squabbling seems to be based on political partisanship, it is also a clash of differing ideologies, priorities and responsibilities.
Quorum Court members voted last month to eliminate the Finance Committee, members of which were appointed by County Judge Marilyn Edwards at the start of the term. Instead, all 15 members of the Quorum Court will consider all budget matters.
Seven of the court members made up the Finance Committee and its recommendations had to go to the full Quorum Court anyway. So this is a means to bring the eight court members who weren't on the Finance Committee into the discussions sooner.
Note that they could already sit in on the committee meetings, if they wanted. But, for whatever reason, they all will be functioning as a committee of the whole Quorum Court now.
Understand, control of the county's purse strings ultimately is the responsibility of the Quorum Court; but the court has historically worked cooperatively with the county judge and other elected officials to develop annual budgets and to track spending over the course of a year.
The county comptroller, an appointee who answers to the county judge, works with the elected treasurer each year to identify revenue that can be expected in the next budget year.
How that money will be spent is determined after various department heads and elected officials present their budget needs and wants.
Ordinarily, those presentations have gone to a finance committee, which met for months with the different budget-makers to nip and tuck the requests to match the available revenue.
Some departments come through the process with what they want. Others don't. It all depends on how tight the county's revenue picture is, how aggressive efforts are to control spending and, yes, who is in favor or disfavor with the decision-makers.
But somehow, late in the calendar year, when the budget must be approved, all the parties accept a compromise intended to guide spending.
That will happen again this year but apparently not without conflict.
Battle lines between the Quorum Court and county executives are developing.
As Sheriff Tim Helder described it last week, there is a "trust issue" between the two branches of county government.
That distrust is manifested in a new budget wrinkle being discussed by the justices of the peace who make up the Quorum Court. They're talking about limiting the ability of the different county offices or departments to shuffle money among line items in their respective budgets.
Budget-making, at this or any other level of government, involves a lot of educated guessing. And officials have often overcome bad guesses by shifting money among line items approved for their respective budgets.
Limits on line-item shifts would essentially deny county officeholders the flexibility in spending that their predecessor county judges, sheriffs and other executives have had.
The idea has aggravated relations among them.
"I'm not going to be pushed around by the Quorum Court into something we've never done before," said David Ruff, the county's tax collector and a former member of the Quorum Court himself.
He'd apparently be OK with a transfer limit on higher amounts of money but not the minor line-item switches that every office utilizes to get its business done.
Both the Helder and Ruff quotes came from a recent meeting of county officials, convened by Edwards and attended by several of the Quorum Court members as well as elected officials.
"It's vitally important that we all work together, that we all understand how much money there is," Edwards said as she presented the attendees a chance to weigh in at the front of this year's budget process.
The county has obvious budget challenges, just as it did last year when the Quorum Court adopted multi-million-dollar budget cuts to bring spending in line with projected revenue.
The action has created operating challenges this year, as illustrated recently in an uproar over funding for animal control that required some additional spending.
Plus, the county has had to spend money to correct bridge deficiencies, further strapping county resources.
Consequently, the county has dipped deeply into reserves and made other compromises that have forced this year's more contentious and somewhat dysfunctional budget process.
Commentary on 08/09/2015