A debate over the Fisher County budget during last week’s special called commissioners meeting resulted in a proposal for the court to consider adopting a system for consolidating all county roads and establish a single department to maintain them. The commissioners agreed to explore the idea and are looking into how the system could be structured.
Fisher County’s upcoming fiscal budget has been debated since talks began early last month, the court came into last week's special called meeting with several unresolved budget requests and a roughly $130,000 surplus to consider. Disagreements over various financial aspects have sparked frequent arguments, and tensions between officials have been high.
The special called meeting last Wednesday was no exception, as the court debated Commissioner Kevin Stuart’s recommendation to address the fact that commissioners receive equal budgets but manage differing miles of county roads.
Despite the fact the forthcoming redistricting process will alter precinct road responsibilities according to new district lines, Stuart said budget inequities have been an ongoing problem, year after year, and his precinct is suffering because of it.
Fisher County has roughly 610 miles of County roads to maintain. In Precinct 4, Stuart is responsible for approximately 185 miles of those roads, compared to the 132 miles fellow Commissioner Gordon Pippin maintains in Precinct 1. “You work 21% of the roads, and I work 30%. That's a 9% difference,” said Stuart. “I work 40% more roads than you do with the same amount of money.”
“Well, there's 100% difference in the roads,” said Pippin, a response that forced Fisher County Judge Ken Holt to regain control of the meeting and remind the court that the topic was the county's budget. After a brief silence, Pippin asked, “Do you want to cut my budget or raise your budget because you have 30 more miles of road than I do?”
Stuart proposed pooling the precincts’ budgets together and reallocate the funds to each precinct, based upon the percentage of county road miles within its boundaries. Precincts would receive anywhere from 21.6% of the funds for the 132 miles in Precinct 1 up to 30.3% for the 185 miles in Precinct 4. “That would cut yours and raise mine,” said Stuart.
“Well I'm not cutting my budget, buddy,” said Pippin, which led to another standoff between the two with each asking pointed questions and delivering hasty from-the-hip responses. For a second time, Holt warned about arguing, advising the commissioners to settle the dispute of who is better on their own time.
The court came back into order, and Pippin offered an alternative. “I've got a good suggestion to fix our problem, we can just go to a unit system, and it will all be the same, and no one can gripe,” said Pippin.
As outlined in Chapter 252 of the Texas Transportation Code, counties have a few options for how to address the ongoing maintenance of county roads. While there are some counties exempt from certain options, most have essentially four different structures to choose from.
Under Fisher County’s current system, each commissioner is directly responsible for the care and maintenance of the county roads within the boundaries of their respective precinct. Collectively, the court adopts policies and general plans for the maintenance of current roads, laying out new roads, changes to roads, and maintaining and building bridges.
With the centralized systems, the commissioners remain policy-makers, and a court-appointed road engineer or administrator is responsible for construction and maintenance and would oversee the road and bridge department. The use of materials, supplies, and equipment is at the discretion of the road administrator without regard to precinct boundaries but in the interest of the county as a whole.
“We need to budget for it, if we’re gonna do it,” said Pippin, “and that'll stop all the arguing about who's got 10 miles more than anybody else.” Minus the elected officials’ salary, a central, countywide road and bridge department could have an annual operating budget of around $1.1 million based on current budget calculations.
Fisher County Attorney Michael Hall said he was more familiar with implementing a new road system through the election process based on petition but it would not be difficult to figure out the various mechanisms. Hall said he would have more information about how the court could implement different systems by the next meeting.
With no special called meetings on the horizon, the discussion about restructuring the road management system should be an agenda item for the regular meeting scheduled for Monday, August 9. This will leave the court with only a few weeks to revise a significant portion of this year’s budget before September’s deadline for its adoption.