Saturday, December 6, 2008

Not A Smart Thing To Do

It sounds like things got a little heated between Sheriff Castle and the County Commissioners at yesterday's safety budget hearing.

I've heard Sheriff Castle talk about his budget problems. And like everybody else, he's struggling. One thing I did not know until I heard his presentation was that public officials are held personally liable if they exceed their budgets. I would be very concerned if I were in his shoes right now.

So what happened?

I spoke to a very reliable source who attended the meeting and he indicated that Commissioner Beltrone walked out on the sheriff.

Great. Just what we need. That kind of childish, unprofessional behavior is NOT going to help solve the problem. Grow up.

3 comments:

Treasure State Jew said...

Haven't we created an untenable situation that is ultimately doomed to fail when we have two power centers (the sheriff and the county commission) that each have responsibility over the same budget, with neither being ultimately answerable to the other?

Both the sheriff and the commissioners are answerable to county voters. While the Commissioners create the sheriff's budget, they have no oversight over the sheriff or his office. Kind of puts everyone in a bad situation, and creates an environment ripe for unproductive power struggles.

Treasure State Jew said...

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Anonymous said...

This is indeed unfortunate. I hope it's not true that Commissioner Beltrone 'walked out', as she's usually in control of the situation and it would be rather unprofessional to do that.