A Glimpse in the Life of a Texas County Commissioner
Every so often, County Progress asks our distinguished Judges and Commissioners to allow us a glimpse into their public lives, giving us a fresh appreciation for the myriad of roles and responsibilities they shoulder every day. Our thanks to Washington County Commissioner Joy Fuchs for taking the time to visit with us.
Washington County Commissioner Joy Fuchs
History:
In 1998, there was an open seat for Precinct 4 County Commissioner, so I decided I wanted to give it a try. In the primary, I ran against two men. I began my campaign by going door to door and meeting all of the people in my precinct, going to all the functions in the county and just trying to get my message out. It must have worked because I won the primary and then had an opponent in the General Election, another man! I continued to visit with people and deliver my message and was elected as the first female County Commissioner in Washington County!
Before running for Commissioner, I was a member of the Burton ISD School Board for 12 years, and at that time I was the first and only female on that board. I also worked full time as a clinical nurse at a local doctor’s office, and served as an adult leader for the Washington County 4-H clubs where both my sons were elected to the State 4-H Council. I am also very active in our County Fair and enjoy serving on various committees. I am the Chair of our church council and sing on the church worship team. Our worship team goes to area churches and civic events spreading the Good News through polka, rock ‘n’ roll and country music.
My most important history is my family! I have been married to Wayne for 42 years, and we have two sons: Michael and his wife, April, live in Springdale, Ark., and have three children, Peyton Michael, Addison Brooke and Carley Paige. Landry and his wife, Jennifer, live here in Brenham and have two children, Olivia Kate and Dallas Landry. They are truly the light of my life, and being a Memaw is the most wonderful job in the world. I am so proud of my sons; Michael graduated from Texas A&M and is employed by Rich Products, and Landry graduated from Sam Houston and is employed by Brenham Wholesale – both are in sales. They are both wonderful fathers, and I have two great daughters-in-law!
Is It What You Expected?
Having served on the school board, I had ideas of what this job could be like, but when I was sworn in and began my first day, I really found out how much of a challenge it is. Washington County is on the Unit Road System, so we have a county engineer. Many of my fellow Commissioners who are on the Precinct Road System ask me, “What do you do all day?” I do check all the roads in my precinct at least once a month, coordinate with our engineer to decide what needs to be done on the roads, and receive all the phone calls from constituents concerning everything from their roads to their neighbor’s septic systems to dogs running after their livestock, to name a few.
In our county, the Commissioners are given responsibilities within our county government. Some of mine are the county fairgrounds, where I helped facilitate the construction of a new event center and office building. I also work with indigent health care, watching over all the bills and making sure we have all the proper guidelines in place. I am liaison to the county volunteer fire departments, attending their chiefs’ meetings and helping them with their needs. I also assist in establishing programs for the 1115 Medicaid Waiver, including a one-stop Health and Service Center for our citizens who are down on their luck. I worked with our EMS director to start a Community Paramedic Program, and recently with our city to transfer the dispatch to the county, a huge project! This entailed hiring a new communications director, creating an IT department, switching all the city employees to being county employees, and most of all working together to get the networks, servers and all the technical things working together. I also try to be available to the other elected officials and department heads to hear their concerns and try to solve their problems.
We have created office space in a building across the street from the courthouse and moved our financial offices, mapping and 911 addressing, environmental department and our Veterans Service Office out of the courthouse and into the annex, which allowed for more room for the offices left in the courthouse. We are currently working on a plan to apply for the Texas Historical Commission’s Texas Historic Courthouse Preservation Program grant to remodel our courthouse.
Since the Healthy County Program began, it was only logical that I, being a nurse, take on the position of wellness coordinator. I enlisted two employees, Carli Koehne and Donna Schultz, to organize this with the help of other employees, and they have done an excellent job in finding new ways to help get our county healthy including The Biggest Loser contest, Zumba, yoga, buying exercise equipment for the employees to use, and conducting a health fair every year to administer flu shots, check blood pressures and take blood tests. We also invite vendors to join us and set up displays to help promote health. I also work closely with our human resources department whenever questions arise and problems occur; new problems seem to pop up every day – you never know what your day will be like when you get up in the morning!
Challenges:
The biggest challenge? Getting along with four men! (just kidding). Seriously one of the biggest challenges is the budget and setting the tax rate. Almost everybody is not happy when we are finished. We are a very conservative court and strive to squeeze the most out of every penny, but as I said that is not always popular. I try to make myself available to the constituents and hear their troubles and complaints, but unfortunately I don’t always give them the answer they would like. Everyone’s road is the most important road and needs to be paved, or “the dust is killing my pasture and my cows won’t eat the grass with all the dust on it.” They would also like to have a deputy sheriff on every road, but they do not realize how much that would increase their taxes. When I took office in 1999, only 17 percent of the roads in Precinct 4 were paved, and now we have almost 60 percent paved. We have a great county EMS that has become very innovative, placing community paramedics at the outlying parts of the county to make a quicker response time, which has helped tremendously. Most of our elected officials and department heads are conservative with their budgets as well, but there are always some who would like a lot more. We are fortunate, as our elected officials work great together and we all like each other. We hold budget workshops the entire month of July and part of August poring over each line item until we create a balanced budget without putting too much financial strain on the constituents.
The legislative sessions are always challenging – keeping an eye out to make sure we don’t get too many bad things thrown down to the counties. It’s always interesting to me that our senators and representatives come out of their session touting that they have not raised taxes and have even cut them in some places, not explaining that, by the way, your Commissioners Court will have to raise taxes because of the unfunded mandates we sent down to them! I know our legislators very well, and I email, call and text them often during the session reminding them we are watching!
As I mentioned before, taking over the dispatch center is a huge challenge. If you can imagine city and county elected officials working out interlocal agreements to try to keep from overlapping services yet being fair when it comes to the money factor – it was challenging. We formed an ILA Task Force and hammered out all the details until, after many months, we came to an agreement. Then we had to convince the city employees that we would do no harm to them and it would be good to be county employees. Once we got our director hired and our IT department going, things rolled at a snail’s pace; we found when you have to deal with the Internet and suppliers and government agencies, it just takes a lot of time and patience. We are getting there, and it will all be good. Yes it will!
Favorite Part:
I enjoy the challenges, the problem solving, getting things done, and seeing a project finished, but most of all I love the people. I consider the elected officials, department heads and employees of Washington County to be part of my family. Our Commissioners usually are harmonious, although we have our disagreements, but when it comes to making the decisions, we always try to keep in mind that we are here to serve the people of Washington County! We work hard to make Washington County the best county and sometimes have fun in the process. Riding in parades, attending community events and working with my friends and constituents are some of the fun parts! About five years ago we began a county employee Christmas party, and we have a committee that works together to plan and organize everything to make it a great time for everyone. We have a new theme each year, and it is a wonderful opportunity for friends and coworkers to have fun.
Serving on the Brazos Valley Council of Governments has been one of my most rewarding experiences. I was honored to serve as Chair, and by being on the executive board I had the opportunity to attend the conferences of the National Association of Regional Councils and was honored to be elected to the board of directors. Through this board I have met peers from all over the United States and have shared their ideas of how to work more efficiently through regionalism. I have also had the great experience of meeting with our U.S. congressmen and U.S. senators to discuss issues in our regions. I also enjoy all the people who voted to make it possible for me to serve them. As I have been Commissioner for 16-plus years, I have met many new people, made friendships that will last a lifetime, and learned so very much about our community. Being a County Commissioner is rewarding and exhausting, but I truly do love it!