The Collin County Observer™

Last year, in response to criticism from the citizens, Collin County began to post many public meeting minutes on their website. Before that, if you wanted to read the minutes, you had to drive to McKinney? and pay a copy fee per page.

Web posting minutes was a good idea, one that makes it simple for a concerned citizen to be able to find out how their tax dollars are being spent.

It appears to this writer that Collin County has never figured out how to accomplish this simple task in a timely manner. During the last year the elapsed span between a commissioners court meeting and the posting of the minutes has ranged anywhere from 3 weeks to 6 months.

Last week I started posting on this site, the number of days elapsed between holding county meetings and the posting the minutes.

When I started, the Health Advisory Board minutes were over 4 months overdue. Within 5 days of my gentle needling, the June minutes appeared. The Commissioners Court minutes lag time has improved from 65 to 51 days.

Posting these items for the public to see is not that hard - it ain't rocket science.

Why not make the timely posting of minutes part of the commissioners' pay for performance rating? Until they can get it right, why not freeze their salaries along with the other employees who are not a part of PFP?

Oh yea...the commissioners are not on PFP, but they get a raise anyway.

Bill