Hiding in Plain Sight

I felt like a fool yesterday at the CC meeting when I asked where the money was coming for the football helmets.  I was told that it was not coming out of the Hotel/MoteL tax but out of the regular budget and that it had been a line item appropriation for last year.  This was a second request for more money for more helmets.

So I checked with court house personnel to see what was going on.  Apparently,  this is how they hide the money in plain sight.  First of all,  know one really checks to see if bills that are approved are legitimate.  The county commission in front of everyone and at the CC meeting approves the bills.  This is done in plain sight but no member of the public actually sees what they are approving.

Members of the CC namely McLaughlin and Walker stamp the bills for approval.  The bills are sent to the clerk's office for payment.  The clerk pays them--No questions asked.  She assumes that they are legitimate bills and writes a check for them.

No one else in the courthouse sees who is paid what or for what.

So if you want to get money from the CC you submit a bill.  The odds are that only two people will see it before it is passed on--Walker or McLaughlin.

In the instant case of the football helmets,  one of the commissioners who approves the bills is David McLaughlin.  I was astonished to learn that day from his own mouth that his two daughters were doing the asking.  Since the football helmet bills passed muster last year, I asked myself who approved those?

It really hurt when I was told that the money for last year's football helmets was a regular item in the CC budget when had been approved by the county Commission.  Hmmmmn!  That really made me feel like a heel.  All this time I had been getting copies of the county commission invoices and somehow I had missed this invoice.  I AM STILL TRYING TO FIGURE THIS OUT.

Now I am told that there are no strict guidelines regarding how our tax dollars are spent--that if the CC wants to contribute to the purchase of football helmets, that is hunky dory.

Then I started getting scared, indeed.  I knew that the hotel motel tax had restrictions and I thought that most of this "free money" was coming from that item.  I knew about the "fish stocking" and the $5,000 outhouses they had funded.  But what I didn't know was the the CC had found a way to "dip" into the regular county budget and extract money for their favorite charities.  INDEED THEY DO!

So this is the way it works!

Every dollar out of the general budget is a dollar out of fire services,  ambulance services, health services, constitutional offices, and the libraries.  Money for football helmets is money not available to these our fine causes.

Frankly, I am uncomfortable with the way Mr. Walker, Mr McLaughlin, and Mr. Beard are spending out tax dollars.  Do you approve?

(Please understand that I support our football team, but if they want money for helmets take it out of the regular school board budget, or have a bake sale.)

(Likewise, I didn't realize that the old helmets were not as safe.  I can't imagine next year's players playing in unsafe conditions.  Wouldn't you think that the board would be concerned.)

 IF THEY HAVE SO MUCH TO SPARE, WHY NOT REDUCE OUR TAXES????