Travis County's "Dysfunctional" County Government

"If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent perversion of justice and righteousness in a province, do not marvel at the matter; for high official watches over high official, and higher officials are over them."
Ecclesiastes 5:8

Ouch...from Tuesday's Statesman:

The report cited inefficiencies and morale problems stemming from Travis County’s current structure.

Some employees interviewed by the consultant described “frustrating” barriers to everyday work. Travel paperwork that requires only 30 minutes of staff time takes more than 30 days to be processed. Payments to vendors are processed so late that the county sometimes has to pay a penalty.

County staffers “often lack the vitality, creativity and the motivation to innovate that is exhibited by well managed professionals,” the report said.

And bringing new talent on board is unnecessarily difficult, the consultants found. The county’s hiring process is so “inefficient,” the report said, that some positions remain open for more than six months — a delay that “may result in the loss of promising candidates who become discouraged or accept other employment offers.”

The consultants also described Travis County as being in a budgeting rut: The same expenses and staffing decisions are renewed year after year “without adequate demonstration of performance or efficiency.” The budgeting documents “contain copious amounts of complex financial information that is impenetrable to most Travis County citizens,” the report said.

 You can read the original report here.

This website is skeptical of the report's conclusion that a 'county administrator' is needed.  To us, that sounds like adding another level of bureaucracy when the solution is to remove levels of bureaucracy that already exist.  Nonetheless, it's clear that the current progressive mafia isn't getting the job done.