Escobar won’t wait for unanimous vote to hire county manager
At least one county commissioner is questioning the timing of this week’s talks about creating a county manager position.
It’s because the terms of two current commissioners expire at the end of the year.
“If we vote on this on Monday, I’m OK with that,” said County Commissioner Sergio Lewis. “But with having one appointed commissioner, my question is, ‘Should we be waiting to get a court that is there by 100 percent electorate?'”
In the past, County Judge Veronica Escobar has wanted a unanimous vote before creating the job. In 2011, she had a 3-2 majority voting in favor of something similar, and a 2-2 split in 2012, with Lewis and Commissioner Carlos Leon voting against it. Now Escobar says a simple majority is good enough.
“It would be wonderful and awesome to have a unanimous vote,” Escobar said. “My sense of urgency is our budget challenges keep getting bigger, and we still have not been armed with all of the tools necessary to meet those challenges.”
Lewis is questioning the move to implement a county manager system now, given that he and Commissioner Patrick Abeln will no longer serve on the court come January. Abeln told ABC-7 he leans toward a county manager system — Lewis is still against it. David Stout, the man who is replacing Lewis, happened to sit in on the meeting Thursday. Stout told ABC-7 afterward he likes the county manager system. So even if Abeln’s replacement is against it, Escobar would still have a 3-2 majority in favor.
“If I were to delay even just the decision, it wouldn’t happen until probably the next budget cycle,” Escobar said. “And then we’ve gone one more year without the tools necessary to really implement some massive changes that need to happen.”
The county manager proposal is about $140,000 more expensive each year than an alternative that puts a new county budget department under the oversight of commissioners court but does not create a county manager position. That cost difference represents only about 0.04 percent of the county’s roughly $320 million budget.
