How County leaders are sharing our pain

· We’ve been told the County budget is so tight, we may not even be able to afford animal control or other important services.

· To see how severe the County budget problem really is, we reviewed the last 60 days of expenditures of ONE department, the Circuit Court Clerk - Tom Hatcher. We found:

o we paid $829 for upgraded cellphones

o we paid $950 for hands free head sets

o we paid $740 for the Christmas cards Hatcher sent out last Christmas

o we paid $2000 for Mountain Spring water for the office (at current supermarket prices, that is nearly 10,000 bottles of water!)

o we paid $5700 for new office carpet

o we paid $4472 for new office furniture

o we paid $1700 for a new refrigerator for the office

o we paid $23,212 for a new Ford Explorer XLT in Pueblo Gold, with the third seat, 4 wheel drive, and trailer towing options, for Hatcher (he needed to replace his “old” County owned 2003 Ford Crown Vic)

o we paid $200 to have the windows tinted on Hatcher’s new SUV

· While doing this review, we stumbled on the fact that we spent $100 to have the County owned car of a school official detailed!

· Would you call this a tight budget?

· Are our County officials sharing our pain?

· Tell your Commissioners, this gives you a pain.