Consistent. Principled. Action.

Citizens,

The Commissioners Court spent the last four days in budget workshop discussions.

Tomorrow, Friday, August 1, at about 10:00 AM, the Commissioners Court will begin the consideration of employee salaries, elected officials' salaries, benefits, insurance, unfunded future liabilities, and the county property tax rate, including any potential tax rate cut. These are the issues that determine the overall budget; whether our county government will grow or shrink in these trying times for county taxpayers. We will also set the two public hearing dates for you to personally give us your feedback on the proposed budget. Final budget approval is scheduled for September 9.

Friday is the day to click on http://collin.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=2 in order to watch live the most important discussions of the week. The discussions will last most of the day, and I understand that many of you cannot watch the entire day, but the webcast is available to you.

Sincerely,
Keith

Citizens,

1. I want to publicly thank the Elected Officials Salary Advisory Committee for their work last week. The Commissioners Court decided to ask a citizens' committee drawn from the grand jury pool to make recommendations on elected officials' salary increases for next year. Although I voted against the idea because I believe that setting salaries is a core duty of the Commissioners Court, I was very pleased with the reasoned and measured discussion among the committee members. The committee recommended a 3.5% pay increase for all elected officials. (Remember that I froze my salary the day I took office.)

The committee members obviously work in the real world and understand wages in the real world. Their discussion showed that they are aware that some civilian workers may not get a raise at all this year due to the stresses on wage growth and that our economy is still in an uncertain period. I recently spoke with a business owner who has hundreds of employees. He told me that the salary increase for his employees this year will be 2.75%.

If you have feedback on elected officials' salaries, please contact your commissioner or me soon.

2. The Commissioners Court Budget Workshop is this week, July 28-August 1. You may watch the workshop live on the web at http://collin.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=2

The daily agenda for the week is at http://collin.granicus.com/DocumentViewer.php?file=316d9c4d86d424d412a44a81935246a4.pdf if you care to watch a certain department presentation.

I cannot guarantee that the workshop will be very exciting, but I consider the budget process, which determines how we spend your hard-earned tax dollars, the most important duty of the Commissioners Court. This week's workshop will be instrumental in setting the final budget for the next year and flushing out inefficiencies in county government.

It is an honor to serve you,
Keith

Citizens,

1) The transition following the untimely passing of Commissioner Jack Hatchell is complete.

Kathy Ward now represents Precinct 4 on the Commissioners Court.

On Saturday, July 19, 2008, Fred Moses was elected to replace Kathy and serve out the current term as the Republican Party County Chairman. Congratulations, Fred!

Now it is up to all of us to get behind our Republican nominees for the November general election and preserve our Republican majority in Collin County.

There are three Commissioners Court nominees on the November ballot, although Matt Shaheen is unopposed. Joe Jaynes has an opponent and Kathy Ward will likely have an opponent.

2) You may have noticed that the Commissioners Court had one previous discussion about putting county expenditures on-line so that you can review county spending at any time. I continue to believe that this is the next step in transparent government. Stay tuned as this discussion continues - you deserve to know how your county government spends your hard-earned tax dollars. The State has already done this, and it only makes sense.

Sincerely,
Keith