Brian Lee, Mike Fields and Phillip Hinton want to spend an extra one million dollars on the county roads that is in excess of the budget for this year. Their plan is to declare an "emergency” so that it can be added to the current budget.
The last time this court declared an emergency was in January 2013 and it was to build a new court room that would have better security because of the DA who was killed in Kaufman County. It is now July 2016 and the commissioners have spent more than one million dollars and no new court rooms have been built. Three years and nothing has been done to improve security.
I do not understand, what is the “emergency” - all of the county roads are open. Sure we have extra pot holes because of excess rain the past two years , but FEMA is going to give the county some help with the roads to repair and replace some culverts. We recently received approximately a half million from an energy fund from the state to repair roads.
You have and will hear how the commissioners have done such a great job in managing the loop project that resulted in having excess moneythat could be used. The facts are that after 2008 the interest rates were lower on the bonds, and construction companies were very competitive when bidding on our jobs because of the economy. It is my opinion that this was the reason that we have extra money in this fund.
The county financial statements for the last few years shows the county pays more than 14% of the budget on debt/service. Almost all of this money is for interest on the bonds to build this loop. The county will not get reimbursed for the interest on the bonds sold to finance this project. $158 million dollars for the construction is all that the county will receive from the state.
The financial statements indicate that the county has been paying more that six million dollars a year in interest on the bonds. At the end of 2015 the county owed over $60 million dollars in interest that we will be paying until after 2034.
The commissioners told the voters that the state would reimburse the county the cost of the loop when finished.
It would be irresponsible for this commissioners court not to apply any extra money, the county may have, to reduce our debt.
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