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By Karen Norris, Executive Director, Texas Association of Counties |
I love county folks and I particularly love how
they steal each other’s jokes, so for those of you
who missed it, the most popular one from last
week’s TAC Annual Conference . . . Did you hear the
one about the 3rd grade class touring the county justice
center? About mid-point they met the sheriff who kindly
agreed to answer questions. There was much curiosity
about guns and patrol cars but one little girl spied the
Most Wanted posters and asked the sheriff about them.
Not wishing to alarm the child, he explained that those
were bad people but that he and his officers were doing
everything they could to find them and put them in
jail so everyone would be safe The little girl appeared
confused and then asked the sheriff “why he hadn’t kept
them when he had them to take their picture?”
At our annual conference last month, we honored State Rep. Fred Hill, chair of the House Local Government Ways and Means Committee by presenting to him our Legislator of the Year Award. In making the presentation, TAC President Marc Hamlin said there was no way to adequately express our appreciation and admiration to this true statesman. Fred Hill’s knowledge and insight, his courage and his mastery of the legislative process have been in inspiration to us all. No thank you or award is adequate.
This issue of County brings news of a bold action by the governing boards of TAC’s Workers’ Compensation Self Insurance Fund, the County Government Self Insurance Fund and our Property Casualty Fund. Each is a financially strong, beneficial program, but to enhance services to members the three will combine to form the TAC Risk Management Pool, effective Jan. 1, 2008. Details can be found on page 15. There’s been discussion of the advantages of merging for years, but today each program has the financial strength to approach the merger as an equal partner. The group of county official board members who studied the proposal truly left no stone unturned. Members should feel confident that the new pool, with its combined resources of over $350 million, is positioned to offer a new level of benefits in pricing and services. Counties should be proud of their accomplishments in building these pools and know of this historic investment in their future.
For a number of years, TAC has been working through our County Information Resources Agency (CIRA) to help counties maximize their use of technology. We’re not quite in a position to declare victory in the battle to gain high speed connectivity for all counties but for the first time this summer, we’ll be turning back unspent grant funds targeted for that purpose because of a lack of applicants. We’re presently hosting Web sites for more than 171 counties. These sites average almost 3,000 visitors a day – over 1 million since the beginning of the year. The public is obviously looking to the Web to access county services and we’re proud to play a role in that. In July, the CIRA Board, chaired by Wichita County Judge Woody Gossom, asked the staff to conduct a statewide needs assessment to identify ways counties can work together in the future to enhance their use of technology. If we contact you, please know that your thoughtful response will be most valuable.
I’d like to share some internal changes here at TAC that I know will lead to good things for us all. Jim Lewis, the editor of County magazine, will be taking on new responsibilities as Director of Communications. Jay Johnson will be TAC’s designated Director of Education and our education staff attorney, Gene Terry, will move to our administration division as our Operations Director. Former Navarro County Judge Alan Bristol will be taking Gene’s position with our judicial education efforts. Congratulations to all.
By Karen Ann Norris, Executive Director, Texas Association of Counties