A week filled with tense moments during Lubbock County budget hearings came to a testy head Friday morning when Kathy Williams, county auditor and Jason Corley, Precinct 2 commissioner, sparred verbally.
“I find that some of the budget hearings are unprofessional, unproductive, and disrespectful to both me and the departments and their staff,” Williams said to the commissioners Friday – one day after Williams got into a brief yelling match with Justice of the Peace Susan Rowley.
Corley asked, “Has your behavior been professional throughout this entire proceeding?”
Williams answered, “I would say no.”
Corley retorted, “I would agree.”
Williams said to Corley directly, “You intentionally orchestrated that yesterday and allowed it to happen. … The court showed silence and allowed it to continue – therefore, I feel, condoning it,” referring to what Williams called the “unfortunate incident” with Rowley.
Corley was overseeing a portion of the Thursday afternoon meeting while Judge Curtis Parrish stepped out.
Williams continued to criticize Corley Friday morning, saying, “Departments sit up here and mislead the public and mislead y’all. And you just sit there and take it.”
Corley defended himself saying, “We are all carrying out our roles in this.”
“No you’re not. … For five years. I’ve tried to get you under control to do professional meetings,” Williams said.
Corley interjected, “Really?”
“And you use it for your own gain. So, stop,” Williams said.
Parrish stopped the disagreement, saying, “We will take this up in your office as you prefer. Thank you, Ms. Williams. And thank you for your work on this budget. … Lubbock County Commissioners Court stands adjourned until 9:30.”
At the start of Friday’s session, Williams told the commissioners, “After yesterday’s unfortunate event, I have nothing to discuss with the court at this budget meeting.”
All future budget discussions involving her input will be held in the auditor’s office, she said.
“Out of respect for the departments still left to present, I will attend those meetings. But I have nothing to say. Other than providing a preliminary overview of the budget during court, I’m done,” Williams said.
Other tense moments included:
- Commissioners squabbled over parks funding Thursday morning.
- In the previous week, Williams had harsh words for Constable Joe Pinson during his budget presentation.
- Commissioners expressed anger and frustration Monday over the lack of online public access to court records, which we reported.
Some of this tension is ‘healthy.’ Some isn’t
This is two years in a row some drama has been part of the county’s budget process. Last year, Corley and Jordan Rackler, Precinct 4 commissioner, walked out of the process in August and September to force a no-new revenue budget. Later, there were claims of retaliation.
Some of this tension is good. Some isn’t, Parrish told LubbockLights.com.
“I think the tension is somewhat healthy if we keep this to actual public policy debate. Now, when it devolves into personality conflict, no, that’s not healthy.”
If a commissioner thinks fixing a county road is more important than hiring a sheriff’s deputy or vice versa, the public should see that, Parrish said.
“Those are perfectly healthy conversations,” he said.
Corley and Williams were invited to speak further to LubbockLights.com. Williams did not respond and Corley said he wasn’t ready to talk yet.
The ‘unfortunate incident’
Rowley was presenting her budget Thursday afternoon, saying there was a problem preventing her from closing out cases in the computer system even though they were already dismissed. She claimed she’d already reached out to the county IT department for quite some time and was frustrated the problem was not fixed.
Williams said, “Okay, judge, let me interrupt you. We are here to talk about your budget. We are not here to talk about … ”
Rowley raised her voice and interrupted Williams, saying, “Well, part of my budget is the goals and objectives. Please don’t interrupt me here.”
Then the two interrupted each other with raised voices.
Corley had to raise his voice to be heard over the both of them.
“Okay! Hey! All right. That’s enough,” Corley said.
Williams said, “We’re not going to place blame on departments during a budget hearing.”
Moments later, Rowley addressed Williams’ concern with, “I believe there’s something personal here.”
Williams tried to say something about departments being accused when they’re not present to defend themselves, but people were talking over each other making it hard to hear her.
“You hear what I said. I’m not doing it!” Williams told Corley, picking up her purse and other personal items as if getting ready to leave.
Turning her attention to Rowley, Williams said, “You want to talk about your budget? We’ll talk about your budget.”
From there, the conversation calmed down and Rowley was able to finish the presentation. Williams stayed.
Defending the auditor and the budget
Parrish wasn’t in the room during the Rowley and Williams confrontation.
But, he said the auditor has the right to challenge department directors on their budget requests.
“If they’re not providing that information then she needs to call them out,” Parrish said.
Lubbock is one of 17 counties recognized by Texas for how open and transparent the budget is, Parrish said.
“I know that that both our JP and our auditor have some pretty-wide, varying views on what budgets should look like. And I will say that given the choice, I would probably lean with our auditor,” Parrish said.
“Lubbock County has consistently been in the tops of the nation in how we do our fiscal conservative budgeting – recognized literally around the United States as being one of the best transparent budgets in the nation,” Parrish said.
Based on what Williams said in the public meeting, LubbockLights.com asked Parrish what happens next.
“I think what she announced today [Friday] is if you want to meet with her during the process … she’s willing to do that,” he said.
“What happens now is the auditor – our budget officer – takes all those requests. She has to build the budget over the next couple of months … and then she will present the final budget to the Commissioners Court,” Parrish said.
Other testy moments
On Thursday, Corley defended his proposal to fund a county park inside the city limits of Slaton. Parrish said it would be better if parks were supported from the county’s general fund instead of specific dedication in the property tax rate.
At one point Parrish and Jordan Rackler, commissioner for Precinct 4, were talking over each other as Parrish rhetorically asked, “What’s the word? ‘Fluff.’”
Parrish wanted to make the point that in his view other commissioners are not consistent about their funding of “needs versus wants.”
No one raised their voices in that exchange, but the discussion ended with Parrish saying, “Fluff it is!”
The week before, Joe Pinson, constable for Precinct 4, asked for enough money to hire a deputy, saying it’s an officer safety issue when there are not enough officers.
“We’ve gotta have some backup out there for our jobs,” Pinson said.
A deputy constable would generate revenue for the county – the job would pay for itself, he said, because there are up-front fees for evictions and other court papers.
Williams interjected she found one example where $640 had not been collected.
But Pinson said the fees are paid before he ever gets any paperwork for an eviction and he never touches the money.
Williams then said, “It sounds like I need to do some auditing of either the JPs [justices of the peace] or the constables. One of the two.”
