June 20, 2008 Commissioner Frank Parker Resigns; Hamblen 2008-2009 Budget Passes

The 2008-2009 Hamblen County budget passed yesterday by a vote of 10-1. Ricky Bruce cast the lone dissenting vote. Commissioners Paul Lebel, Frank Parker, and Nancy Phillips were absent.

Prior to the budget vote, there were a few surprises. (1) A commissioner resigned. (2) A last-minute insurance decision was made. (3) Trustee Bill Brittain reported on a special meeting of the county's executive committee that was held just prior to the full commission meeting to discuss the county's debt.

(1) Commissioner Frank Parker, who has not attended the last several committee or commission meetings, submitted a letter of resignation. In his letter to Chair Stancil Ford and County Commission, Parker said:

Please accept this as proper notice of my resignation from the County Commission (District 7) effective June 30, 2008.

For some time now, I have found in necessary to abstain from voting on the Commission due to my position as a county employee. This has made me uncomfortable. I want to concentrate on my work at Cherokee Park and feel that this decision will help me focus my efforts there.

I just want you and the other commissioners to know that I have enjoyed serving on the county commission. I just feel that this is the right decision at this time.

(2) The E-911 and Solid Waste employees, represented by EMA Director Eric Carpenter, asked to be allowed to piggy-back on the county's insurance. After intense questioning by Commissioner Joe Swann over the possible negative impact that these groups could have on county employee's insurance premiums at renewal time, the Commission voted to put them on the county's insurance for 6 months and "study" the issue.

These groups were previously piggy-backing on the city's insurance but, as Carpenter pointed out, they were left out when the City decided in May that it could save money by going to a self-insured plan that only included city employees.

(3) Trustee Bill Brittain said that the Executive Committee met with Joe Ayres of Cumberland Securities just prior to the Commission meeting to discuss problems with the county's debt. Brittain mentioned the subprime market and its negative impact on the county's debt--noting several county bond issues were involved.

The Commission approved appointment of County Mayor David Purkey, Finance Director Nicole Buchanan, and Trustee Bill Brittain to research this issue and report back.

September 15, 2005 Several departments respond quickly to vehicle request

See my post of September 13: COUNTY INVENTORY.

After reviewing the 6/30/05 County Inventory, I asked Finance Director Nicole Epps at a September 12 Finance Committee meeting if she would get mileage and condition information for all county vehicles listed on the county inventory. [County Commission passed a resolution almost two years ago that it wanted to have this information on an annual basis.]

Nicole Epps' boss (County Mayor David Purkey) was also at the Finance meeting. After I asked her for the information, she told me that it was not required by the auditors and then her boss (County Mayor David Purkey) said that I would have to ask each elected official and department head directly for that information myself.

Well, I'm not shy about asking for information, so I went ahead on September 13 and began sending out e-mails at about 3:35 pm requesting this information from officials and department heads.

About 45 minutes after I sent out my first e-mail request, I received a copy of an e-mail from Finance Director Nicole Epps showing that she was suddenly starting to request the information for me.

I was surprised by her e-mail since I had specifically asked her on September 12 if she would get this information and her response then was that it wasn't "required" and her boss's response (Mayor Purkey) then was that I would have to request it myself from each department.

I e-mailed her back that I had already started to get the information myself like I'd been told to, and we didn't need to duplicate our efforts.

Let's be realistic. County Mayor David Purkey detests financial questions. Since I ask them and actually follow through to get the answers (from others if necessary), County Mayor David Purkey detests me. He has made that evident in three years of vicious personal attacks.

I think that most of the anger that causes him to blow up so often can be traced to my proposal after taking office to have the state auditors perform the county audit in 2003.

The state auditors came in and suddenly Hamblen County, which had only one audit finding or problem reported by the local auditors in the 2002 audit, had 29 findings of irregularities and violations of state law in the 2003 audit. That was more findings than any other county in the whole state.

Mayor Purkey's anger bubbles to the surface every time I ask a question or try to get information. He even got upset when the full commission asked him to do something really simple--like put a county decal on his county car. Now, why in the world did he blow up and refuse to put a Hamblen County decal on the car that the taxpayers provide for him (along with gas, insurance, and maintenance costs, too)? Go figure.

FORTUNATELY, MOST COUNTY OFFICIALS AND DEPARTMENTS HEADS ARE CO-OPERATIVE, CIVIL, AND POLITE WHEN QUESTIONS ARE ASKED...

In my September 13 post, I mentioned that most elected officials and department heads are responsive and willing to share information about county (taxpayer) property.

Well, I want you to know that one official responded more quickly than anyone could have imagined. Assessor of Property Keith Ely sent the mileage and condition information back on the same day I sent the request. Keith is one of the most open and accessible elected officials around, and he is always willing to discuss and provide information about his office.

I worked with Keith about two months ago when I called him to let him know that I had found what appeared to be a rather large error in the new state-certified property tax rate that the state had sent us and that our Trustee and Finance Department were using in calculating our county revenues and budgeted expenditures. After my call to Keith, he called the state and asked them to review and check our new property tax rate.


The state agreed that it had made an error and sent back a corrected figure that reduced the new property tax rate for Hamblen County taxpayers by 11 cents. That 11 cents meant a total savings to county taxpayers of nearly $1.2 million dollars, and it was all taken care of in one day.


There are several other officials who have already responded to the request for vehicle information: Eric Carpenter (EMA), Danny Young (Planning Commission), and Cyndi Trent (Juvenile Court).

It will probably take a few days for a response from the Sheriff and the Road Superintendent/Garbage Dept. because those are the two departments that have the largest number of vehicles.

There are just one or two other departments that haven't responded yet, but I'm sure they will because, as I have said before, most elected officials and department heads are very open and very willing to share information about county (taxpayer) property.

August 8, 2005 If you can't stand the heat...

We had commission committee meetings today. These are the pre-meeting meetings (like a work session) where we discuss items that will come up at the regular Commission meeting on August 18. Nothing big came up although there was a lot of good debate and exchange of ideas.

We will ask Charter Cable Company to dedicate a channel to the county for use in televising county commission meetings. Currently, we deliver tapes to Walters State Community College and lately there have been problems with the airing of those tapes. Sometimes, no tape was shown at all. Sometimes, the meeting was not shown in its entirety. (Once , this was because the entire meeting was not filmed. Other times, however, part of the tape would be shown on one day and the other part on another day instead of the full meeting being aired in one sitting).

If you can't stand the heat...

The last meeting of the day was the Audit Committee. Edwin Osborne is chairman. Members present were Maudie Briggs, Herbert Harville, Linda Noe, and Joe Spoone. (Ricky Bruce was present for an earlier meeting, but he left before the Audit Committee meeting began).

The main agenda item was a letter that had been prepared by Chairman Osborne and that was addressed to Finance Chairman Herbert Harville. The letter remarked on the difficulty (impossibility?) in getting answers to 2004 audit questions from the County Mayor or Finance Director. It said that the Audit Committee is at an impasse and noted that County Mayor David Purkey had "willfully" encouraged other elected officials and departments heads not to respond in writing to the Audit Committee and not to attend Audit Committee meetings.

The Mayor's statement urging officials and departments heads to boycott Audit Committee meetings a couple of months ago was very effective. No one attended the Audit Committee then, and no one attended the Audit Committee today. Today, as the Audit Committee prepared to meet, the Mayor told county employee Jeff Atkins and local news person Paul Meador, "let's go," and they did. They skeedaddled out of there, so you probably won't hear anything about what happened at the Audit Committee on tomorrow's radio news.

The boycott game appears to be part of a power play. Commissioner Osborne is in for a rough time as he starts to ask questions. It'll be even rougher if he actually insists on answers.

Of course, Harville stated that this was "political." Apparently, asking for financial information about the county is "political," but withholding financial information is not. The vote was 4-1 to send the letter that asks Harville, who is chairman of the Finance Committee, to try and get some response out of County Mayor David Purkey and the Finance Department in connection with audit questions that have been asked but never answered.

Harville was the lone dissenting vote.

Since he voted against sending the letter in the first place, I asked Commissioner Harville if he would have any conflict or difficulty in trying to resolve the audit situation and getting some answers from the County Mayor. Harville said "no." I didn't want to see Harville placed in an uncomfortable situation doing something that he really didn't want to do.

Harville then asked Commissioner Osborne if Osborne really thought that he (Harville) could get answers to audit questions when Osborne and the committee had been unable to do so in numerous prior attempts. That was a very good question. I guess only time will tell whether Herbert Harville can succeed in getting Mayor Purkey to provide financial answers where others have been unable to do so.

If Harville can get answers to the 2004 audit questions that have been ignored for months by the County Mayor and Finance Director, we'll have to make him the official liaison between the Hamblen County Commission and the Hamblen County Mayor/Finance Department.

Stay tuned...

July 23, 2005 "Oops"

Remember your mom telling you, "haste makes waste"?

At the Commission meeting on July 21, the Finance Director and County Mayor David Purkey got kind of hot when I expressed my frustration at being handed financial figures and budget info during the meeting and not having an adequate opportunity to review them before a vote was taken.

My point was that we need time to review figures to see if they match what was voted on previously in committee. The whole thing reminded me of what happened just two weeks ago when we received the certified tax rate and the Trustee took those figures and calculated new revenue totals and Mayor Purkey and Ms. Epps took those figures and gave us new budget summaries and then ...

OOPS, I took a look at the calculations and found out the new tax rate had been miscalculated--it was 11 cents too high. That meant that the revenue projections were $1.2 million too high, and the budget summaries were no good. Haste makes waste!

The word I used to describe my feelings at the meeting on Thursday, being handed figures and then told to vote, was "stunned." Yes, I am stunned that we sit there while papers and numbers are thrown at us on the day we are to vote. In this instance, some of the papers and data were handed to us in the middle of the meeting while other business was being handled.


When I got home Thursday evening, I had time to review the data and found that the general government fund was showing "only" about a $460,000 deficit where it was about a $760,000 deficit when we left the July 19 meeting.

On Friday afternoon, July 22, I planned to e-mail Mayor David Purkey and Finance Director Nicole Epps to see if the $300,000 difference was related to the extra $300,000 that Herbert Harville and 8 other commissioners had voted to take out of the county government fund and give to the school system on top of the $2.8 million in new funds that the schools were already getting.

I went to work and didn't get home until 5:30. There was no use in sending an e-mail then--everyone at the Courthouse would be gone. My question about the $300,000 that was left off would have to wait until Monday.

Oops!!

On Saturday, July 23, guess what arrived in the mail?

An "Oops!" letter from County Mayor David Purkey and his Finance Director Nicole Epps. There was indeed a $300,000 mistake in the General Fund. The $300,000 that Commissioner Harville had voted to give to the schools from Trustee's fees had been left off of General Fund expenditures. Long and short of it: the figures we voted on so hastily and without reviewing them were wrong.

"Haste makes waste?" Yes, it certainly does.

July 14, 2005 Briggs: Mayor Purkey might "slip up and incriminate himself"

Calm before the storm…

The first three committee meetings (Finance, Public Services, and Personnel) went as smooth as silk.

We discussed joint city-county Metro government. I proposed that we ask that County Mayor David Purkey meet with Morristown City Mayor Gary Johnson to get a feel for how the City might view establishing a Metro Study Committee.

I am hopeful that the City will at least be open to discussing and studying Metro. Most everyone I have heard from thinks it’s time to look at this. This proposal will go to the full Commission on July 21.

In other action, Planning Commission appointments from the Mayor are to be forwarded to the full Commission, and a change to the Personnel Handbook is planned so that exempt/salaried employees will be treated in the same way as non/exempt employees now are.

The storm…

During the Audit meeting, Commissioner Maudie Briggs said that County Mayor David Purkey probably doesn’t want to come and answer audit questions because he’s afraid he might “slip up and incriminate” himself.

At the end of the meeting, Briggs added that Hamblen is just a “peon” county.

Here is what led up to those comments and that outburst. It was amazing.

Audit Chairman Edwin Osborne called the Audit meeting to order at 5:00 pm. Commissioner Maudie Briggs and I, members of the Audit Committee, were present. Jim and Mary Young, Hamblen County residents, were there to watch and took notes.

Commissioner Ricky Bruce is a member and had been present for the other meetings, but he left and didn’t attend the Audit meeting. Commissioners Herbert Harville and Joe Spoone left to attend a Planning Commission meeting. Joe Spoone came back to the Audit meeting after the Planning meeting was over, but Herbert Harville did not.

Commissioner Osborne began by pointing out that County Mayor David Purkey has refused to attend audit committee meetings and has refused to answer written questions about the 2004 audit. As a result, the role of the audit committee is unclear.

Osborne noted that Mayor Purkey maintains that the audit is the official financial “Bible” for Hamblen County. Osborne, a CPA, stated that a financial audit is a look at a very small number of financial transactions that have been taken from a very few sample areas. In Osborne’s opinion, a financial audit cannot be held up as a financial “Bible,” and he said the state auditors themselves would never call it that.

Osborne also pointed out that Enron and Worldcom had "clean" financial audits right before they collapsed.

Osborne expressed concern that Mayor Purkey and Finance Director Nicole Epps always respond to any financial questions about 2004 with a pat answer: “We’ve been audited.” He said a financial audit, which is different from a performance audit, does not mean that everything is OK.

To explain it in laymen’s terms. A financial audit is important, and the state auditors are doing an outstanding job with that. But a financial audit is a bit like a person looking only at his year-end bank statement and a few checks he wrote during the year and trying to figure out from that if everything is OK. The financial audit, like the year-end bank statement, will tell you what you have left, but it does not examine in detail how you got there or whether you have spent money properly and as intended.

I then remarked that it is very troublesome to me that financial questions about 2004 audit problems are being ignored. That’s when Briggs pounced. She said my questions were threatening. When asked to explain what was threatening about a simple financial question, she said it was my use of the word “why” in my question. That’s what made it threatening.

PS: Next time, I’ll remove the word ‘why’ at the beginning of my question and I’ll try to ask it in a way that Briggs would approve—“For what reason did you move $350,000 around from fund to fund in 2004 without authorization from County Commission. Please explain what past errors you were correcting.”

Briggs didn’t stop there. She added that in her opinion I am out to get two elected officials and hang them from the lanyard. She seemed to be longing for the good old days when nobody reviewed figures or called Nashville to check out facts. She ended by asking, “What does Nashville care about this ‘peon’ county in East Tennessee anyway?”

Whoa! Let’s calm down. First, we are not a peon county. Second, a financial question about the spending of public money is not a threat. Third, a financial question can’t ‘get’ anyone --unless there are serious problems in the handling of funds. Fourth, open and honest answers are the easiest way to get rid of financial questions.

Lastly, I certainly hope that Mrs. Briggs did not mean it when she said that County Mayor David Purkey was afraid to come to meetings and respond to financial questions because he was afraid he might “slip up and incriminate” himself.

Let’s try to stay focused on accountability. Let’s avoid the personal attacks...It's all about fiscal responsibility and taking care of tax dollars--the people's money.

My questions have always been about what has been done financially, not who’s doing it.

The answers should always be about what has been done financially, not who’s asking.

July 8, 2005 Trust, but verify! Saving Taxpayers $1.2 Million

"Trust, but verify."


We had a Budget Committee meeting yesterday, July 7. Commissioners got work packets and financial data to prepare for the meeting on July 5. In our work packets, the state had reported a new countywide certified tax rate of $1.95. The Trustee had taken this new tax rate and had run new revenue calculations. The Finance Director had prepared a new budget summary using the new rate and revenue calculations. BUT...

Fortunately, the packet included the worksheet showing how the new tax rate of $1.95 had been calculated by the state. I looked at the state's calculation of the new rate and immediately spotted a problem. A wrong number had been plugged in to the calculation. The rate had been miscalculated and appeared to be too high by 11 cents.

I called the Assessor who immediately called Nashville and within a short time we had a new LOWER tax rate of $1.84. Anybody can make a mistake. As the old saying goes, "Trust, but verify." That's the only way to be accountable and take care of tax dollars. In this case, a simple review of the figures resulted in a savings to county taxpayers on their tax bills of close to $1.2 million dollars.

The Assessor, Trustee, and Finance Director handed out corrected information on the tax rate, revenues, and budget summary, and the Committee discussed the 06 budget briefly. There was some good financial news presented at the meeting. Our worker's compensation premiums have gone down significantly.

Since 05 closed out on June 30, I asked that the Trustee and County Mayor/Finance Director provide updated 05 revenue and expenditure reports before we proceed further with budget deliberations. It will be helpful to get a final, more accurate picture of revenues and expenses of the year just completed before we finalize a spending plan and set a tax rate for the next year. These officials agreed to provide the 05 figures before we meet again on Wednesday, July 13.

I also brought up Metro, joint city-county government. I keep hearing commissioners and residents say it's time to look in to this, but we haven't taken any concrete step toward exploring this. Several commissioners said that they think the City of Morristown will resist any move toward Metro. I certainly hope there won't be any knee-jerk opposition to Metro. Geographically, Hamblen is the third smallest county in Tennessee, and there is only one city in the county. We are an ideal candidate for a Metropolitan form of government. It's a proposal that deserves full and fair consideration. There has been way too much city-county bickering in the past.

More on the Budget and Metro to come....